Mises University 2017

Occam's Banana said:
The Birth of the Austrian School | Joseph Salerno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvAMTgq5feg

Click to expand...


:D
That man...

tVXxftP.png
[/IMG]
 
Occam's Banana said:
The Birth of the Austrian School | Joseph Salerno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvAMTgq5feg

Click to expand...


CmNrEIU.png


zeD1lU7.png


@ 27:26

My list would look different. In his example, I'd give up bushel #2. I'd go just paleo for the year and strive to find me a cat friend instead of a parrot. That way, my wheat would be safe from rats next year. Plus, I don't like birds and their nasty tongues. *gag* Cats have cool sandpaper tongues. Parrots aren't totally useless to me, though. My cat friend and I could catch us one and after he ate it, I could take it's pretty feathers and make us a matching necklace/collar set.
 
Occam's Banana said:
Subjective Value and Market Prices | Jeffrey Herbener
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcaCcaOQb_w
Click to expand...

More Robinson Crusoe...

EONJBKZ.png


@ 18:38
If these guys want to attract more woman, they should use shoes as an example instead of gas.

For example, I went shoe shopping and the technical unit is a pair. I didn't buy a pair. I bought the number of pairs I wanted. In my case, it was four because they were on sale. BOGO.:cool:(In his example, he didn't remember how many gallons of gas he wanted but I remember exactly how many pairs of shoes I wanted and just in case I ever want to forget, Mr A is perfectly happy to remind me.) That's my unit. That's my chosen amount that I bought.
In every action that is the case. The unit is chosen ;it's a choice variable.

Dang, this is where my shoe example fall apart. :( He goes on to point out that if Crusoe only wants two coconuts for drinking and he has four, he would have to use the extra coconuts to some other end. I'm not sure if I have a set number of shoes that I want for wearing. Or maybe not...My running shoes, for example. If I fully satisfy my running end with the cute pair of UA's I got on sale then if had two pair of running shoes (I do.), I would use the other pair for a less desirable end - yard work, in my case.


@20:23

The second law of utility is where my shoe example will really hook the ladies.:D

A larger stock of a good is preferred to a smaller stock. :cool:

I'm gonna use the second law of utility on Mr A next time he bitches about my shoes.:D

Hmmm...how many units of "labor" does it take for me to acquire one pair of shoes? Oh, boy...I'm trying to keep this family friendly.
 
Last edited:
Occam's Banana said:
Praxeology: The Method of Economics | David Gordon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGbCfWaWtNY
Click to expand...



@1:12

What is philosophy?

The word philosophy comes from the Greek word philosophía which means philosophy.
~Father James Sadowsky

Gawd I love nerds.
----

It's hard to listen to David Gordon. One toober suggested, Tip for listening to David Gordon: Click Settings and turn the Speed to 1.25
He's brilliant, but can be difficult to listen to at his normal speaking pace. but I turned on CC thinking it would be easier. Apparently, CC has trouble hearing him correctly, too. Praxeology = crack geology that you "don't aproach ology":D

kji0T2a.png


Getting closer....

Pyn68NS.png


....

@ 8:48

On methodical individualism..
:eek:
Animals do act.:mad:

----

I know things just by thinking about them. :cool:

*now CC is calling praxeology, crash geology.*

@ 32:36 I wish he had used, the earth is an oblate spheroid as his example of Moorean fact.:toady:*takes jab at flat earthers*

.........

How do you know that praxeology applies to anything other than your own thoughts?

We're concerned with actions. We're not concerned with my actions or mental state. (thank God) We're talking about actions which are out there in the world.

....

*CC is translating praxeology as crazy ology now.* It's making sense to me. CC is just too mainstream for this video.

Popper is falsified. The end.
 
For a New Libertarian

07/28/2017 Jeff Deist

[This talk was delivered at the 2017 Mises University.]

...

The title “For a New Libertarian” is I hope an obvious play on the title of Murray Rothbard’s famous book For a New Liberty. It’s an underrated book, less well-known perhaps than The Ethics of Liberty. Lots of authors have the ego to call their books “a manifesto,” but few books actually live up to such an bold subtitle. This book does.

I love Murray’s line: “libertarianism, then, is a philosophy seeking a policy.” I wonder if he’d change that line today, if he could see where the “public policy” branch of libertarianism has become. Or maybe he should have written “libertarianism is a philosophy seeking better libertarians.”

I also chose the title to make the important point that we don’t need a “new libertarianism” or anything so grand. Thanks to the great thinkers who came before us, and still among us, we don’t have to do the hard work — which is good news, because not many of us are smart enough to come up with new theory! We can all very happily serve as second-hand dealers in ideas.

Sometimes libertarians do fall into a trap of needing something new, what we might call a modernity trap. It has become trendy to imagine that technology creates a new paradigm, a new “third way” that will make government obsolete without the need for an intellectual shift. The digital age is so flat, so democratic, and so decentralized that it will prove impossible for inherently hierarchical states to control us. The free flow of information will make inevitable the free flow of goods and services, while unmasking tyrannies that can no longer keep the truth from their citizens.

While I certainly hope this is true, I’m not so sure. It seems to me that states are shifting from national to supra-national, that globalism in effect means more centralized control by an emerging cartel of allied states like the EU and NGOs — not to mention calls for a convergence of central banks under a global organization like the IMF. We should be suspicious of the determinist notion that there is an inevitable arc to human history.

And while we all benefit from the marvels of technological progress, and we especially welcome technology that makes it harder for the state to govern us — for example bitcoin or Uber or encryption — we should remember that advances in technology also make it easier for governments to spy on, control, and even kill the people under their control.

So I suspect that while humans continue to exist, their stubborn tendency to form governments will remain a problem. The choice between organizing human affairs by economic means or political means was not undone by the printing press, or the industrial revolution, or electricity, or any number of enormous technological advancements. So we can’t assume liberation via the digital revolution.

No, Rothbard’s conception of liberty has held up quite well over nearly half a century. Humans are sovereign over their mind and body, meaning you own yourself. From this flows the necessary corollary of property rights, meaning individuals have a valid claim to the byproducts of their minds and bodies--axiomatically we know that humans have to act to survive. And from self-ownership and property rights we arrive at a theory of when force is permissible, namely in self-defense. And these ideas of self-ownership, property rights, and non-aggression ought to apply to everyone, even when a group bands together and call themselves “government.” Since governments by definition use force (or threaten force) in many ways that are not definable as self-defense, they are invalid under the Rothbardian paradigm.

It’s a beautiful, simple, and logical theory. And of course at least a degree of all three elements — individual liberty, property rights, and some conception of law protecting both — are necessary and present for real human progress. I know, I know, slaves built the pyramids, although Egyptologists tell us otherwise, and Soviet scientists weren’t free and they still built nuclear bombs — probably to avoid a trip to Siberia. But the larger point we know is true: liberty and human progress are inextricably linked.

So we have this fantastic, airtight Rothbardian theory of liberty. But it’s not enough. And Murray was adamant about this. He was the first to stress the importance of people and activism, not just ideas and education. But what kind of people, and what kind of activism? That was the question in Murray’s time, and it’s still the question today.

I. Recognize that Liberty Comports with Human Nature.

If there is one overriding point we should remember it is that liberty is natural and organic and comports with human action. It doesn’t require a “new man.” Yet libertarians have a bad tendency to fall into utopianism, into portraying liberty as something new age and evolved. In this sense they can sound a lot like progressives: liberty will work when human finally shed their stubborn old ideas about family and tribe, become purely rational freethinkers (always the opposite), reject the mythology of religion and faith, and give up their outdated ethnic or nationalist or cultural alliances for the new hyper-individualist creed. We need people to drop their old-fashioned sexual hangups and bourgeois values, except for materialism. Because above all the archetypical libertarian is presented as an almost soulless economic actor, someone who will drop everything and move to Singapore tomorrow to make $20,000 more in the gig economy.

Well it turns out that’s not how humans really are. They’re fragile and fallible and hierarchical and irrational and suspicious and herd-like least as much as they are a bunch of heroic Hank Reardens. In fact Rothbard talks about just this in his section on libertarian strategy at the end of For a New Liberty. He reminds us that it’s progressive utopians who think man has no nature and is “infinitely malleable.” They think man can be perfected, made into the ideal servant of the New Order.

But libertarians believe in free will, he points out. People mold themselves. And therefore it’s folly to expect some drastic change to fit our preferred structure. We hope people will act morally, we believe liberty provides the right incentives for moral improvement. But we don’t rely on this to make liberty work. In fact only libertarianism accepts humans as they are, right here right now. It is in this sense that Rothbard sees liberty as “eminently realistic,” the “only theory that is really consistent with the nature of man and the world.”

So let’s understand — and sell — liberty as a deeply pragmatic approach to organizing society, one that solves problems and conflicts by muddling through with the best available private, voluntary solutions. Let’s reject the grand visions and utopias for what will always be a messy and imperfect world. Better, not perfect, ought to be our motto.

....

What Would You Fight For?

In closing, I’ll mention an email exchange I had recently with the blogger Bionic Mosquito. If you’re not reading Bionic Mosquito, you should be!

I asked him the same hypothetical question I have for you: what would you fight for? The answer to this question tells us a lot about what libertarians ought to care about.

By this I mean what would you physically fight for, where doing so could mean serious injury or death. Or arrest and imprisonment, or the loss of your home, your money, and your possessions.

I’m sure all of us would fight for our physical persons if we were attacked, or for our families if they were attacked. We might fight for close friends too. And perhaps even our neighbors. In fact we might like to think we would physically defend a total stranger in some circumstances, for example an old woman being attacked and robbed.

And we probably would fight for our towns and communities if they were physically invaded by an outside force, even though we don’t personally know all of the people in our towns and communities.

We might fight for property too, maybe not as fiercely. We certainly would protect our homes, but that’s because of the people inside. How about cars? Would you physically tangle with an armed robber who was driving away in your car? Or would you let him go, and not risk death or injury, just to save your car? How about your wallet? How about someone stealing 40% of your income, as many governments do? Would you take up arms to prevent this?

We probably wouldn’t fight for bitcoin, or net neutrality, or a capital gains tax hike, by the way.

How about an abstraction, like fighting for “your country” or freedom or your religion? This is where thing get more tenuous. Many people have and will fight for such abstractions. But if you ask soldiers they’ll tell you that in the heat of battle they’re really fighting for their mates, to protect the men in their units--and to fulfill a personal sense of duty.

In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people. Libertarians ignore this at the risk of irrelevance.

Thank you very much.
Click to expand...

https://mises.org/blog/new-libertarian
 
Occam's Banana said:
An Evening with Judge Napolitano | Andrew Napolitano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krd0sVkZKI8
Click to expand...

Let that sink in. :( Unless something drastic happens I'll probably die in peace from arsenic poisoning but my sons (especially number 2) may not be so lucky.

Judge Andrew Napolitano Warns Students: Some of You May Die in Government Prisons

Judge Andrew Napolitano, a senior judicial analyst for Fox News, was a guest lecturer last week at Mises University in Auburn Alabama. During an opening lecture where he discussed natural rights, the development of the Constitution and footnote 4 of United States v. Carolene Products Co., he closed the question and answer period following his lecture by saying he saw dark clouds coming for the country and warned the students that some of them may die in government prisons by standing faithful to first principles.

The full warning is here (1 minute 33 seconds):

Click to expand...

http://www.targetliberty.com/2017/07/judge-andrew-napolitano-warns-students.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Occam's Banana
Mises University 2025
2 3
Replies
45
Views
853
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Mises University 2024
2 3
Replies
49
Views
15K
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Revisionist History of War Conference (livestreams, etc.)
Replies
19
Views
339
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Human Action Conference 2024
Replies
18
Views
5K
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Our Enemy, The Bureaucracy [2025 Mises Circle @ Phoenix AZ]
Replies
3
Views
132
Occam's Banana
Occam's Banana
Back
Top