One More Atlas Post
Here are Pitt and Jolie looking their most Randian:
Posted April 29th, 2006
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Who Is Brad Pitt?
Follow-up to yesterdays post: On second look at the TOC report, I notice it says: The film will be based on a script of the first part of the novel .... It is anticipated Atlas will be a multi-part film.
Thats good news too it would be nice to see Atlas get the Lord of the Rings treatment. But it does raise a question about Pitts alleged casting as Galt in this first film. Galt doesnt appear in person until the final third of the book; so if Pitt is in the first film, either hes playing someone other than Galt (Rearden, perhaps?), or else, more likely, theyre changing the story. Oh well.
Posted April 29th, 2006
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Dagny Taggart, Tomb Raider; or, Tyler Durden Shrugged
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
The Atlas Shrugged film project, which has been languishing in development hell for, like, ever, seems to be making progress toward actuality once again, this time under the auspices of Lionsgate. Moreover, the Objectivist Center reports that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are interested in parts in the film. Contact Music insists, less cautiously, that the movie will star Jolie and Pitt as Dagny Taggart and John Galt respectively.
Im inclined to trust the more cautious over the less cautious report, but this casting would certainly be very good news. Not because Jolie and Pitt are ideal to play the roles theyre not (though on the other hand I can certainly envision Hollywood making much worse choices) but because their names attached to the picture would bring investor dollars now and viewers later. Keeping my fingers crossed ....
Posted April 28th, 2006
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Anarchy in Prague
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Tomorrow I leave for the Prague Conference on Political Economy. This wont be the farthest east Ive gone in Europe, since Vietri sul Mare, on the west coast of Italy just south of Naples, is actually further east. (One of those things you dont believe until you look at a map like the fact that Reno, Nevada, is west of Los Angeles.) But itll be the farthest inland Ive been in Europe, as well as my first visit to a former communist country.
The topic of my presentation is Rule-following, Praxeology, and Anarchy. Heres an abstract:
The aim of Ludwig Wittgensteins rule-following paradox is to diagnose a seductive error that Wittgenstein sees as underlying a variety of different philosophical mistakes: the implicit assumption of the need for and/or possibility of a self-applying rule. A further implication of Wittgensteins diagnosis is that human action is not reducible either to purely mentalistic or to purely behavioural phenomena.Adios till next week!
If, as I shall argue, Wittgensteins analysis is correct, then, I shall further argue, the rule-following paradox has important implications for two aspects of Austrian theory.
First, Wittgensteins argument sheds light on the relation between economic theory and economic history i.e., between the aprioristic method of praxeology and the interpretive method of thymology, as Ludwig von Mises uses those terms in Theory and History. In particular, it shows that, just as thymological interpretation involves praxeological categories, so the possession of praxeological categories involves thymological experience thus enabling a reconciliation of the superficially opposed insights of Mises Kantian approach, Murray Rothbards Aristotelean approach, and Don Lavoies hermeneutical approach to Austrian methodology.
Second, Wittgensteins argument provides a way of defending the stateless legal order advocated by Rothbard, Lavoie, and others. Critics of free-market anarchism often charge that a stateless society lacks, yet needs, a final arbiter or ultimate authority to resolve conflicts; but what such critics mean by a final arbiter turns out to be yet another version of the self-applying rule that Wittgenstein has shown is neither needed nor possible.
Posted April 18th, 2006
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George Masons Feet of Clay
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
We should never let our admiration for a thinkers virtues blind us to his flaws (or, of course, vice versa). Commenting on past U.S presidents, I recently wrote:
[I]t often seems like the better they are, the worse they are; i.e., when you look at the Presidents who did the most libertarian things, they always seem to be trying their damnedest to cancel out the merits of their pro-liberty achievements by turning around and doing the most horrifically anti-liberty things they can think of. (Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln all come to mind.)Todays Mises Daily Article by Norman Van Cott makes a similar point about another founding father with some libertarian credentials, George Mason. When he was good, he was very good; but when he was bad he really wallowed in despicable hypocrisy.
Posted April 17th, 2006
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The Red Flag of Rothbard
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
My Rothbard Memorial Lecture is now available in text, audio, and video formats. In it I try to delineate Rothbards legacy for the libertarian left, including a discussion of the relation between free-market anarchism and participatory democracy.
I should add a thank you to Wally Conger, Brad Spangler, and Sheldon Richman for their very generous comments (which I am too vain not to link to).
Posted April 7th, 2006
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JLS 20.1: What Lies Within?
Mutualist Admiration Society, or Mutualist Assured Destruction?
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Im back from Vegas, but a bit under the weather; Ill blog about the conference and other matters later. But while I was away, the latest issue (20.1) of the Journal of Libertarian Studies came out, and as is my wont Im writing a brief plug.
Kevin Carson (check out his website and blog) is one of the most interesting thinkers on the contemporary libertarian left, and his book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy is a fascinating read. While Im not convinced by two of Carsons major theses the impermissibility of absentee landownership and the superiority of (a subjectivised version of) the labour theory of value his case for them is subtle and sophisticated, and deserves grappling with. Moreover, the book is filled with extremely valuable material including a trenchant analysis of what Carson calls vulgar libertarianism, meaning the error of sliding from a defense of genuine free markets to a defense of present-day neomercantilist corporatism that one can largely appreciate whether or not one buys into the two aforementioned theses.
Anyway, I figure Carsons claims deserve a hearing to whatever extent they are right, and deserve a rebuttal to whatever extent they are wrong; accordingly, this symposium issue of the JLS is devoted to examining Carsons work from an Austrian perspective (or, as it turns out, several Austrian perspectives); it includes critiques by Bob Murphy, Walter Block, George Reisman, and myself, and a reply by Carson. You can read my summary of the contents here; and the articles themselves are already online here.
For some of the discussion this issue is already generating, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Read summaries of previous issues under my editorship here.
Read back issues online here.
Subscribe here.
Posted April 6th, 2006
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Blogosphere of the Libertarian Left Ring Owner: Thomas Knapp Site: Blogosphere of the Libertarian Left |
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