Archives: July 2005

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Electronic Cornucopia of Liberty

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Good things that are now available online:

• Israel Kirzner’s 1960 work on economic methodology, The Economic Point of View.



• All back issues of Rothbard’s 1970s journal Libertarian Forum.



• The trailer for the movie version of the anarchist comic book V for Vendetta.

Slight Turbulence

The international trailer for Serenity – the theatrical continuation of the tv series Firefly, about which I’ve blogged here – is now online here or here. (I had trouble with the QuickTime version – it kept freezing up toward the end – but the other versions worked fine.)

If you haven’t seen the domestic trailer yet, it’s here.

Molinari Trifecta!

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

The glorious march of dead libertarians revivified continues! I’ve recently translated, and posted in the Molinari Online Library, three articles hitherto unavailable in English: two by anarcho-Belgian Gustave de Molinari, and one about him.

• Anticipating Rothbard’s 1965 observation that state socialists seek to achieve liberal goals through the use of conservative means, Molinari’s 1848 “Utopia of Liberty” extends an olive branch to his socialist opponents, urging them to adopt libertarian rather than authoritarian strategies for improving the condition of the working class. This article is billed as the first in a series of outreach letters to socialists, but it’s unclear whether more were published (I’ll find out after I get access to the relevant issues of the Journal des Économistes); but in any case the article’s approach makes it in effect a practice run for Molinari’s more ambitious Soirées, published the following year.



• Molinari’s mentor Frédéric Bastiat famously marveled that Paris gets fed without the help of central planning, thanks to the spontaneous order of the market. In “The Feeding of Paris During the Siege” (1871), written in Paris during the closing months of the Franco-Prussian War while the siege was still under way, Molinari describes how governmental efforts to remedy the economic effects of the Prussian blockade generally made matters worse by disrupting the self-regulatory functions of the price system. While Molinari grants (perhaps too generously) the legitimacy, in principle, of governmental intervention in case of emergency, he effectively shows how no emergency powers can repeal the basic laws of economics – a useful lesson for fans of post-hurricane “anti-gouging laws” today.



• Upon Molinari’s death in 1912, his protégé Yves Guyot wrote an obituary notice and biographical sketch of his mentor. While downplaying the anarchistic dimensions of Molinari’s thought, Guyot lays particular stress on Molinari’s scheme for “labour-exchanges” (bourses du travail), i.e., stock-exchanges for labour, designed to enhance the bargaining power of the working class by increasing workers’ mobility. (For some possible drawbacks to this approach, see H. C. Emery’s comments.) Guyot’s short-term optimism about the abolition of war in the 20th century makes sad reading today, but his long-term conviction that “truth once advanced is never lost,” though it may for a time be “preserved only by some,” offers inspiration for those seeking to win these 19th-century thinkers a wider audience today.

And Thank Goodness Nobody Lives in Mexico

Just heard on the Weather Channel: in a “worst-case scenario” the edge of hurricane Emily might graze Florida or Texas, but not to worry, the worst part of the storm is merely headed toward Mexico.

Shocking Secret the Airlines Don’t Want You to Know!

Why waste money on expensive airfare between New York and Paris when, as the picture below shows, you can simply walk from one to the other?

Vipers and Fireflies

This Friday the Sci-fi Channel kicks off the second season of the new-and-improved Battlestar Galactica. At the end of last season, nearly every main character was either under arrest, marooned on a hostile planet, or bleeding to death all over the floor, so the season opener has a fair bit to address.

Spencer versus the Empire

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

A little over a century ago, Herbert Spencer published his last book of essays, a volume with the rather unexciting title Facts and Comments. (His previous book had been titled Various Fragments; clearly the man needed some marketing advice.) Topics of the essays ranged over Spencer’s usual broad range of interests, from business ethics, the psychology of music, and the criteria of literary style, to evolutionary biology, the existence of God, and the metaphysical basis of geometry.

Among the essays were four, unfortunately as timely today as in 1902, dealing with the evils of militarism. The first of these, Spencer’s acerbic “Patriotism,” I posted online nearly two years ago; in fact it was the very first text to be included in the Molinari Online Library. I have now posted the remaining three:

• “Imperialism and Slavery” examines the relation between foreign and domestic policy, arguing that militarism abroad must inevitably translate into loss of liberty at home.



• “Re-barbarization” explores the reciprocal influence between militarist policy and the increasing brutalisation of popular culture.



• Finally, “Regimentation” analyses the growth of governmental bureaucracy and corporatism as part of the militarist syndrome.

Extreme Golf!

So, yesterday London gets hit by its worst bombing since World War II. What, then, is the front page story in today’s Opelika-Auburn News?

“Area named top spot for golf.”

Other front page stories include “Young aviators have eyes on skies” and “A recovering meth addict tells his story.”

But hey, the London bombings do make it onto page 3.

Kelo and the Constitution

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Libertarians are divided over the Supreme Court's recent decision to allow states to exercise expanded powers of eminent domain: should the Court have struck down the offending statute in the name of property rights, or let it stand in the name of federalism?

I think each side is partly right and partly wrong; in an article on LRC today I explain why.

Share the Wealth!

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

The latest issue (19.2) of the Journal of Libertarian Studies is out, with articles on topics ranging from calculational chaos in public education, discrimination against the ugly, and the mediæval roots of libertarian consent theory, to the neo-Spoonerite jurisprudence of Randy Barnett, the “domination-free discourse” of Jürgen Habermas, and the rôle of public property under free-market anarchism. I summarise the contents here.

In other news, I’m writing up my thoughts on the Kelo decision; I should have them posted in a day or two. A brief summary: everyone is wrong but me!!

Celebrating Our Nonexistent Freedom

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

In 1852, Frederick Douglass famously asked: what, to the slave, is the Fourth of July?

In the same spirit, we can ask today: what, to the libertarian, is the Fourth of July?

For my answer, see once again my 2003 Fourth of July editorial.

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