by Stephan Kinsella
on June 12, 2009
Libertarian Papers, Vol. 1 (2009), Article No. 26. “On the Possibility of Assigning Probabilities to Singular Cases, or: Probability Is Subjective Too!”, by Mark R. Crovelli
Abstract: Both Ludwig von Mises and Richard von Mises claimed that numerical probability could not be legitimately applied to singular cases. This paper challenges this aspect of the von Mises brothers’ theory of probability. It is argued that their denial that numerical probability could be applied to singular cases was based solely upon Richard von Mises’ exceptionally restrictive definition of probability. This paper challenges Richard von Mises’ definition of probability by arguing that the definition of probability necessarily depends upon whether the world is governed by time-invariant causal laws. It is argued that if the world is governed by time-invariant causal laws, a subjective definition of probability must be adopted. It is further argued that both the nature of human action and the relative frequency method for calculating numerical probabilities both presuppose that the world is indeed governed by time-invariant causal laws. It is finally argued that the subjective definition of probability undercuts the von Mises claim that numerical probability cannot legitimately be applied to singular, non-replicable cases.
Also: Libertarian Papers, Vol. 1 (2009), Article No. 27. “Milton Friedman & the Human Good,” by Tibor R. Machan
Abstract: Milton Friedman is among those who have favored a value free, amoral defense of the free society. Here I discuss his basic reason for doing so, namely, that the claim to moral knowledge implies authoritarian politics. I argue that this is wrong because to act morally cannot require coercing people to do so–to quote Immanuel Kant, “ought” implies “can.”
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 12, 2009
In this CNBC report, the Cato Institute’s William Niskanen, says of Bernanke: “In terms of performance, he’s performed very well.” With libertarian friends like this….
Update: see DiLorenzo here.
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 12, 2009
Sheldon Richman has a great “TGIF” [“The Goal Is Freedom,” but released on a Friday–get it?] column out today, Intellectual ‘Property’ Versus Real Property: What Are Copyrights and what do they mean for Liberty?. For a very short column, it’s packed with great insights.
Admirably, Richman focuses on justice rather than more utilitarian concerns such as incentive effects:
The crux of the issue is this: Do IP laws protect legitimately ownable things? One’s view of the laws will proceed from one’s answer to that question, and that’s what I will concentrate on here. I leave for another time the issue of incentives. I do so because the justice of a claim must be decided before we consider the specific incentives and disincentives that flow from our decision.
Of course, a principled focus does not mean one doesn’t care about consequences; as Richman adds parenthetically, “(No, this does not make me a “nonconsequentialist.” Consequences figure in our basic conception of justice.)”
[continue reading…]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 11, 2009
Aww, Lew is so nice:
Not only does he, in his spare time, found and edit the amazing Libertarian Papers, and inspire the anti-IP revolution among libertarians (with Jeff Tucker playing Lenin to his Marx), but he maintains websites for Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Walter Block.
Speaking of Tucker playing Lenin to my Marx, here are a couple of pix: one, me in front of the Budapest University of Economic Science, in 1991, wearing a “Karl Marx: Wanted Dead or Alive Teeshirt,” and another in 1999, on the Italian island of Capri (probably my favorite place in the world), standing in front of a monument to Lenin.
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 11, 2009
I’m now cross-posting but had not been until recently. Here is an archive of all my older LRC Blog Posts, from June 2003 to June 2009 (PDF version; HTML version).
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 9, 2009
Other blogs I have (some fairly moribund) or places I often blog:
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 9, 2009
Update: see Reading Suggestions for Prospective/New Law Students (Roman/Civil law focus); Advice for Prospective Libertarian Law Students
***
From my post Book Recommendations: Private, International, and Common Law; Legal Theory on the Mises Blog. Archived comments below.
A friend interested in law, legal theory, and possibly law school asked me for some recommendations for some good books (or articles, I suppose) that discuss private law systems, international law, the common law, etc.–with particular emphasis on explaining the common law’s or private law’s philosophical underpinnings.
I am drawing a blank on “the” book to read, since in my experience various interesting strands tend to be scattered across a wide array of books and articles; and moreover, most of the best stuff tends to be by mainstreamers or those with otherwise-flawed philosphical, political, or economic viewpoints. So you have to take what you can find here and there.
Here are some of my suggestions, most of which have a lot of implicit caveats:
[continue reading…]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 8, 2009
Great film. Eastwood is amazing.
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 8, 2009
Update: from: Knowledge vs. Calculation: But factor 2, technical-causal knowledge, has continued to increase over time (even though impeded and distorted by state patent law). The human race thus can and obviously has accumulated a “fund of experience,” as Hayek calls it, that contributes to human progress and the creation of wealth. It is not conflating correlation with causation, nor minimizing the crucial role of money prices in rational economic calculation, to explain today’s immense prosperity as the result primarily of the accumulation of knowledge, since there has been no obvious and significant improvement in property rights and money price calculation. (My own view is that the industrial revolution happened when the accumulated technical and related knowledge reached a certain tipping point; I agree with Hoppe that other explanations for the IR are wanting but am not persuaded by Hoppe’s theory either; but I am not sure, and this is neither here not there.)
See From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution: An Explanation of Social Evolution (PFS 2009):
A speech given in May 2009 to the fourth annual conference of the Property and Freedom Society at the Hotel Karia Princess in Bodrum, Turkey.
Video by Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance.
Update:
“From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution: An Explanation of Social Evolution,” ch. 4 in The Great Fiction. [latest references: PFP041 | Hans-Hermann Hoppe, From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution: An Explanation of Social Evolution (PFS 2009)]
Necessary and Sufficient Causes of the Industrial Revolution: Some Critical Remarks on Mises and His Explanation; The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline.
[fvplayer id=”6″]
See also Charles Murray’s review of Nicholas Wade’s recent book, A Troublesome Inheritance: “Then, with courage that verges on the foolhardy, he adds a chapter that incorporates genetics into an explanation of the West’s rise during the past 600 years.”
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 8, 2009
I was talking with my 5 year old on the way to school this morning about us driving to the airport tomorrow to pick up a friend. My son mused that it would be cool if we could fly to the airport to pick up our friend, instead of driving; and then he started jabbering about how we sometimes fly (from Houston) to Baton Rouge, and sometimes drive, when we go there to visit family. Then he blurted out, a sort of puzzled-epiphany look on his face, “But!–for some weird reason, you have to pay to fly on an airplane, but driving on the roads is free!”
Update: I’m also reminded that a few weeks ago when my son and I were skyping with a libertarian friend in some South American country, when my friend asked my son what he thought about the government, my son replied, “The government should be arrested.”
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 8, 2009
The hapless Canadians’ ire over the stupid “Buy American” movement in the US reminded me of an amusing brief trade-war saber-rattling between Texas and Louisiana back in 1991. The story is reported in Call It Voodoo, but Texas Surrenders in Beer Battle. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission banned Louisiana’s Dixie Blackened Voodoo Lager Beer earlier that year “because, they said, its name and label, which shows a swamp, conjure images of witchcraft and the occult.” In retaliation, “the Louisiana House passed a resolution banning the sale of Lone Star Beer”. Finally, “faced with legal questions, a retaliatory ban on a Texas beer and widespread ridicule, the regulators changed their minds” and revoked the ban. But not without a harumph: Dixie’s owner said at first she thought it was a joke–but a Texas bureaucrat opined: “A lot of people think we were being silly, but we still feel like the voodoo connotation is not in good taste and not in the public interest,” and another one intoned that the prohibition “has to do with your cults and public safety areas. … “We have to keep an eye on a lot of things like that.”
I remember the issue because I was then a senior in law school, and this example was used to illustrate the effects of the interstate commerce clause. If I recall, the question was whether Louisiana’s retaliation was constitutional–if I remember, even though it was in response to an unconstitutional action by Texas, Louisiana’s action was still itself unconstitutional–both were unconstitutional burdens on interstate commerce–protectionism of a sort. Louisiana’s action here reminded me of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ endorsement of “a controversial proposal to support communities that refuse to buy products from countries that put trade restrictions on products and services from Canada.”
I doubt the ban hurt Dixie–I remember looking for it after this incident.
[Cross-posted at LRC]
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by Stephan Kinsella
on June 7, 2009
Here are some of my older AgainstMonopoly.org blogposts, which were not cross-referenced here (but will be going forward):
[continue reading…]
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:59:55 — 27.4MB)
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