Andrew Galambos: forgotten genesis

[legion]

While the ideas that make up what is now known as libertarianism seem to be very old, I believe differently.

Most of the scholars we hold up as libertarians saw their philosophy as a continuation of Conservative politics.

Even if you disagree with this point, has it never struck you as odd that the early Libertarian Party started on the west coast, when Rothbard, Rand, etc. were all based on the east coast?

There seems to have been a change in thought some time in the 1960's on the west coast of the US, and I believe it was the lectures of Andrew Galambos that caused this change. His ideas spread through the region until a distorted version of them caused the formation of the Libertarian Party.

Galambos, however, saw his ideas as an apolitical solution. Most here would call him an anarchocapitalist.

The following passage is a summary of the first of his lecture series, and a pretty good approximation of the content of his courses.

Civilization in Crisis
History, anthropology and archaeology show that ever since most of humanity progressed beyond living in small bands of people preoccupied solely with the search for food, every major civilization of the past has collapsed, experiencing its own version of the events described by Edward Gibbon in his three-volume work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788).

The next developments in human history may be far worse than the decline and fall of a particular society; rather, we may be en route to the self-extermination of our entire species.

We have achieved the ability to destroy mankind with weapons derived from knowledge of the physical and biological sciences—enormously powerful explosive bombs capable of obliterating entire cities, and methods of infecting and killing vast populations and areas with deadly germs and chemical poisons.

We are in crisis because we lack a social structure that would prevent use of such weapons. The purpose of the philosophy set forth in these lectures is to solve that problem once and for all and point the way to a peaceful, durable and prosperous civilization capable of indefinite expansion into the cosmos. The first step, and the basis for all else, is a higher concept of human freedom.

It is the thesis of these lectures that inherent in our problems is their solution, namely using—in the domain of human interaction—the very same knowledge-acquisition and error-rectification methodologies that led to the rapid advances in the physical and biological sciences over the past 300 years.

AJG was born in Hungary in 1924, son of an architect whose military service in World War I motivated him to remove his wife and young son to America in 1926 in order to protect them from the next war that he foresaw impending. AJG volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army in World War II. His attitudes about society arose in the context of his awareness of the increasing destructiveness of war, the horrors of every day life under the murderous tyrannies of the 20th century, and their genesis in the failures of mankind’s political institutions.

...

http://www.capitalismtheliberalrevolution.com/chapter/civilization-in-crisis/




Why have you never heard of Galambos? He was a rocket scientist for TRW at the very heart of the military industrial complex. Galambos made anyone that took his classes sign a defense industry style NDA to not disclose his ideas. I'm not entirely sure yet as to why he did this.

 

[legion]

A third of these lectures have now been disclosed on the internet for free. I did not upload these lectures. I have only found them.

I paid to get these on CD when researching the ideological heritage of Harry Browne. Now they are available for free. I think they are worth a listen.

 

[legion]

The second part of lecture 1.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Have you ever read "It Usually Starts with Ayn Rand"? In that book, Galambos is not forgotten -- no, he makes his hilarious mark in the annals of libertarian history.

Why have you never heard of Galambos?

Of course, part of the reason why no one has heard of him is that he considered it a gross violation of his intellectual property rights to discuss his ideas outside of his lecture hall. You could only hear the ideas if you paid to hear them; they were his absolute property. That was the idea, anyway (whoops: idea -- just by explaining that, I am probably violating his rights postmortem). Clearly one of his students or heirs has now, decades later, been persuaded otherwise.

 

[legion]

Have you ever read "It Usually Starts with Ayn Rand"? In that book, Galambos is not forgotten -- no, he makes his hilarious mark in the annals of libertarian history.


Of course, part of the reason why no one has heard of him is that he considered it a gross violation of his intellectual property rights to discuss his ideas outside of his lecture hall. You could only hear the ideas if you paid to hear them; they were his absolute property. That was the idea, anyway (whoops: idea -- just by explaining that, I am probably violating his rights postmortem). Clearly one of his students or heirs has now, decades later, been persuaded otherwise.

There is quite a bit of mythology as to what actually happened in the courses. This is part of the reason I sought out the recordings on CD.

I wondered why someone as intelligent as Harry Browne had involved himself with a quack that dropped nickels in a jar every time he said a word.

Why don't you take a listen, and see how much intellectual property is discussed in the courses.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

There is quite a bit of mythology as to what actually happened in the courses.

Obviously, since it was impossible to learn what was actually taught in the courses!

But yeah, I'm not prejudiced. We just have to be able to laugh at ourselves. I thank you for posting them and look forward to listening to them sometime when I have the time.

 

[Joseph]

Galambos was a genius! The V 50 lectures are about the longest thing you will ever listen to in your life but they are INCREDIBLE! Andrew Galambos' book Thrust for Freedom: An Introduction to Volitional Science is a great, short book to introduce you to his ideas. There isn't an Anarcho-Capitalist resource that so intricately explains how to view the social sciences from a truly scientific viewpoint.

 

[legion]

 

[legion]