Abstract Minutiae

Perhaps the best illustration of the current misconceptions of the individualism of Adam Smith and his group is the common belief that they have invented the bogey of the “economic man” and that their conclusions are vitiated by their assumption of a strictly rational behavior or generally by a false rationalistic psychology. They were, of course, very far from assuming anything of the kind. It would be nearer the truth to say that in their view man was by nature lazy and indolent, improvident and wasteful, and that it was only by the force of circumstances that he could be made to behave economically or carefully to adjust his means to his ends. But even this would be unjust to the very complex and realistic view which these men took of human nature. Since it has become fashionable to deride Smith and his contemporaries for their supposedly erroneous psychology, I may perhaps venture the opinion that for all practical purposes we can still learn more about the behavior of men from the Wealth of Nations than from most of the more pretentious modern treatises on “social psychology.

—Hayek in Individualism and Economic Order

I agree with 100% of this. I wish I had made it.

SecularNumanist reads from Schopenhauer’s On the Basis of Morals 

old news but a good reminder

An excellent primer on a number of issues. Highly recommended reading. [pdf]

Vijay Boyapati, “Why Credit Deflation Is More Likely than Mass Inflation: An Austrian Overview of the Inflation Versus Deflation Debate,” Libertarian Papers 2, 43 (2010).

Adherents of Mises (sometimes peculiarly closer to Rothbard and anarchism than to Mises himself) often claim that Hayek represents an entirely different strand in the Austrian tradition, go beyond the legitimate Böhm-Bawerk/Wieser separation and argue that Hayek is a covert social democrat. Such interpretations are true to the extent that Hayek explicitly opposes the minimal state. But they appear thoroughly absurd if one analyzes Hayek’s economic policy oeuvre, his opposition to the ideal of social justice and his personal political involvement.

—Another gem from Hayek as Ordo-Liberal [pdf].

Just sayin’, the people he killed were probably cultural marxist pieces of shit and it’s good that they’re dead. An act of state is an act of war, I doubt if a single one of the people he killed were innocent. If they voted for anything but the abolition of the state, they’re guilty. I’m not saying to kill all statists, but I don’t cry over their deaths nor should one hesitate to do so if it was necessary.

— Ryan Faulk aka FringeElements, seemingly expressing sympathy for the Oslo shooter. Here’s the whole thread. As if to displace an extreme statement with an insane one, he goes on to say “if i had to choose between 100 random humans and 100 random dogs dying, I’d choose to kill the humans.”

While it would be an exaggeration, it would not be altogether untrue to say that the interpretation of the fundamental principle of liberalism as absence of state activity (rather than as a policy which deliberately adopts competition, the market, and prices as its ordering principle and uses the legal framework enforced by the state in order to make competition as effective and beneficial as possible – and to supplement it where, and only where, it cannot be made effective) is as much responsible for the decline of competition as the active support which governments have given directly and indirectly to the growth of monopoly.

— F.A. Hayek, “Free” Enterprise and Competitive Order (Presentation in April 1947 at the founding meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society), reprinted in: Individualism and Economic Order, Chicago, pp. 107-118. Found in the superb paper Hayek as Ordo-Liberal by Stefan Kolev [pdf]. Yes, it is one sentence.

(potentially relevant article from last year. Massive explosion in Oslo, Norway earlier today)

See my last post for the script.