In recent years and months, both Austrian economics and libertarianism have received increased attention and criticism. The more recent attention is probably in part due to Ron Paul’s visibility and his publicizing both types of ideas.

I suppose it’s a good sign that they are no longer ignoring us. Now they feel compelled to respond. But it would be nice if they didn’t misrepresent and distort our views. But since both libertarianism and Austrian economics are sound and grounded in reason and reality, I guess that’s all that left to them. Otherwise they’d have to concede defeat. And truth and justice have never really been the raison d’êtres of the mainstream power class, have they?

Recent critics of Austrian economics include Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong (to whom Austrian economist Bob Murphy has responded), Matthew Yglesias in Slate, and others (see also The Economist, Lexington: Ron Paul’s big moment). For a nice response to and overview of some of this, see Sheldon Richman’s recent Reason piece, “How Liberals Distort Austrian Economics: The lame campaign to discredit the Austrian school.”

But the attacks on Austrian economics come from both “left” economics (Keynes, Krugman), since its teachings undermine their arguments for  statist central planning; and from “right” economics (monetarists, Milton Friedman), as it shows how unscientific and confused is their scientism and monism and physics-aping methodology.

The attacks on libertarianism likewise come from left and right and other mainstreamer/academic statists. For examples:

• Academic James W. Child, “Can Libertarianism Sustain a Fraud Standard?“, 104 Ethics 722 (1994), to which I responded in The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression and Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach;
• One-hit neocon Francis Fukuyama, “The Fall of the Libertarians” (Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2002), to which I replied in “Fukuyama and Libertarianism” (and there were many other criticisms);
• Neocon (?)/wannabe/faux intellectual Jonah Goldberg, “The Libertarian Lobe” (National Review Online, June 22, 2001), to which I replied in “On Jonah Goldberg’s Youthful Phase“;
• “Conservative” (and former Austro-libertarian) Ed Feser, “The Trouble with Libertarianism” (TechCentralStation, July 20, 2004), to which I replied in The Trouble with Feser (on Libertarianism); Woods, Fleming, Chronicles Discussion and Re: The Trouble with Feser (on Libertarianism);
• Leftist Stephen Metcalf, “The Liberty Scam” (Slate, June 20, 2011), on which I commented in Slate’s Metcalf on Libertarianism and Nozick; and
• Leftist Jeffrey Sachs, “Libertarian Illusions” (Huffington Post, Jan. 15, 2012).

(For another insipid recent caricature of libertarianism, see Value for Value: A Short Story on Why Libertarians Fail to Communicate.)

As I note in some of my replies linked above, a common argument made by many of these and other mainstream critics of libertarianism, both left and right, is that they, like libertarians, value liberty; but that the problem with libertarianism that liberty is our “only value.” So they pretend to be more nuanced and wise and subtle. They take liberty into account, sure–but they also “balance” it against “other important values”–say, egalitarianism (for the lefty) or “cultural values” (for the righty).

For example, as Jonah Goldberg writes:

libertarians see freedom as the highest, best value. Conservatives see freedom as one of the highest and best values, but they recognize that no abstraction should get in the way of doing the right thing. Conservatism, rightly understood, requires making hard decisions about the inherent tradeoffs between liberty and community, altruism and economics, ideals and practicalities.

Or as paleoconservative Thomas Fleming writes in the thread discussing Feser, noted above:

The problem with Liberal and Austrian economics is not the economic analysis but the Liberal philosophy which is part and parcel of their system. It is based on utterly fatuous and self-evidently false principles which they choose to regard as universal, even though most people in human history would not have agreed with them at all. The reason they put teh profit motive above all other values is simple: Liberal philosophy only recognizes two moral actors: the individual and the state. Libertarian liberals exalt the individual and denigrate the state, while leftist liberals do the opposite. But both sides begin with entirely false, counter-factual premises about the nature of man and the nature of society. But, quite apart from the falseness, these premises are not only non-Catholic, but they are also non-Christian.

In the same thread, one John Esposito characterized libertarians as “treating material prosperity as the highest good”.

As I wrote in response to Fleming:

I do not agree that libertarians “put the profit motive above all other values.” First, I am not sure what such a statement even means. How do you put a profit motive above other values? Second, libertarians simply maintain that initiating violence against the person or property of innocent, peaceful neighbors is unjustified. If Fleming thinks aggression can be justified he is welcome to try. And libertarians qua libertarians don’t “exalt” anything, much less the individual over the state. How does favoring peace, cooperation, civilization, and prosperity, and opposing violent conflict, struggle, murder, mayhem, rape, pillage, theft, misery, death mean you “exalt” the individual? All this is perfectly compatible with a traditionalist world view as well.

… Libertarianism is simply the view that aggression–violence directed at innocents–is unjustifiable. It does not imply “putting the profit motive above all other values” (whatever this means), or “exalting the individual over the state” (though states are inherently evil, while individuals at least have a chance not to be).

When Fleming starts talking in non-rigorous, liberal artsy type terms about libertarians “recognizing” only “two moral actors: the individual and the state,” and that this is contrary to “the nature of man and the nature of society,” and arguing that “these premises are not only non-Catholic, but they are also non-Christian”–this is just a smokescreen for endorsing acts of aggression. Okay, fine: so Fleming has his reasons for endorsing aggression. So does the highwayman. What does the victim care? Elsewhere he says, ” I don’t at all see that societies are made up of unconnected rational indidivuals possessed of those mystical rights that Liberals are forever speaking of.” So what if he doesn’t see this? Saying he denies mystical rights is a subtle way of reversing the burden of proof. The libertarian say aggression is wrong; “rights” is a convenient way to express this. If you “deny rights” you are really saying “sometimes it’s okay for me to hit you over the head with a rock, even if you are not threatening or endangering me”. (The incongruence of this statement favoring naked violence, made in a purportedly rational discourse about what norms people ought to voluntarily abide by, is what Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s argumentation ethics is getting at–see my “Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide.”)

And as I wrote in reply to Goldberg:

Another misstatement about libertarians is that we “see freedom as the highest, best value.” This is not true at all. We simply maintain that unprovoked aggression against the person or property of others cannot be justified, and may be countered by responsive (defensive or retaliatory) force. Again, I doubt Goldberg can provide the justification for aggression that he would need, in order to show that libertarianism is wrong.

If this is the neocon critique of libertarianism, it looks like we have already won the debate.

Leftist Metcalf adopts a similar tactic to conservative Fleming. Fleming engages in nonrigorous, flowery liberal arts metaphors about whether there ontologically “are” “moral actors” aside from individuals and the state, to smuggle in the conclusion that aggression against individuals is okay. Metcalf takes a similar tack:

Take Margaret Thatcher’s infamous provocation—”There’s no such thing as society”—with its implication that human beings are nothing more than brutishly competitive atoms.

Notice how disingenuous this is. Instead of just admitting that one favors thuggish, brutish state violence against innocent people to accomplish one’s goals–but this sounds a bit illiberal, doesn’t it?–one says, “welll……. we can’t say that society is only individuals; ‘society’ exists too. We are not ‘just’ brutishly competitive individualistic atoms.” “Therefore” “society” has rights too, so we have to balance societal rights against individual rights, and hey, sometimes you have to crack a few eggs (individuals) to make an omelet (society, greater good). This is very similar to the argument made by the conservatives who place “culture” or “family values” in competition with the individual, and they all go about their balancing. Individuals and their rights inevitably lose. But hey, at least “society” is happy! It’s getting a piece of the pie too!

As I wrote in response to Metcalf’s piece:

This does not imply this at all. It merely recognizes that society is just a concept denoting the activities and interrelationships of actual individual human beings; that individuals do exist and are the primary social unit. It is a call to not be misled by metaphors or sloppy philosophy into overriding the rights of human beings in the name of higher-order concepts like “society.”

In essence, Metcalf’s arguments are just like those of conservatives (which is why I’m a libertarian). The basic argument (of both Metcalf and conservatives) is: “well of course we believe in individualism, individual rights, property rights, free markets–it’s just that it’s not our “only value.”” By this trick they are able to argue for state violence against innocent people. Libertarians are the ultimate liberals because we are tolerant of differences, and respect individual rights. We will never condone physical violence used against innocent individuals. Talk of “other values” “in addition to” “individual rights” is a smuggled, dishonest, indirect way of saying that in some cases it’s okay for the institutional violent force of the state to be brought to bear on innocent people. Obviously, that is not liberal. It’s illiberal. That’s why it has to be disguised. Instead of saying “normally I’m against the commission of violent criminal aggression against peaceful, innocent individuals, I condone it in some cases for the purpose of what to me is a higher value”–which is what the private criminal and the sociopath and the genocidal tyrant also say, of course–they word it differently, to cover this up, just like a cat with his mess in the litter box or a politician on the stump: “We’re in favor of individual ‘autonomy’ but we are ‘also’ in favor of ‘other values.’ We need to ‘balance’ these values for the overall good.” I.e., to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.

And the latest to weigh in with this kind of “reasoning” is Jeffrey Sachs, who says:

Libertarianism is the single-minded defense of liberty. … the error of libertarianism lies not in championing liberty, but in championing liberty to the exclusion of all other values. …

Libertarians hold that individual liberty should never be sacrificed in the pursuit of other values or causes. Compassion, justice, civic responsibility, honesty, decency, humility, respect, and even survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable — all are to take a back seat.

To repeat: the basic problem with this is that it  is just a disguised way of saying they are not libertarian–that they think violence are aggression are sometimes okay. As I point out in “What Libertarianism Is” and “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist,” the libertarian is simply someone who consistently opposes aggression, defined in terms of the invasion of the borders (unconsented use of/unwanted change to the physical integrity) of the property of (scarce resources owned by) another person (the owner). We oppose aggression. It is not that it is our “only” value. We are not just libertarians. But we do think aggression is unjustified, and immoral.

So when the conservative or liberal starts maundering about how they also support liberty but unlike the libertarian, they don’t “only” support liberty, this is just another way of saying that they sometimes oppose aggression–but not always. They are simply saying that they are in favor of aggression–the naked violence committed against the person or property of innocent individuals–for some reason. Well, good for them–but so what? After all, every criminal, whether private or public, has some reason for committing or condoning aggression. The victim of the aggression doesn’t really care what the motivations of his oppressor are: whether it’s a slimy brigand, the nazi stormtrooper thugs of a dictator–or the tax collector or narcotics agents “democratically” appointed/elected due to the expressed desires of modern liberals and conservatives who have “values” that are “in addition” to their value of non-aggression. All criminals–all aggressors–have some reason or excuse for their actions. Does this make the damage they do to their victims any less?

When I corner some of these guys and try to get them to admit that they simply are against aggression some (maybe most) of the time, but in other cases they are in favor of aggression, they often squirm and try to deny it. Sometimes they equivocate and say that we all favor aggression–even us libertarians, since we think the victim has the right to use “aggression” to defend against crime. Not so fast, Mr. Sneaky. That ain’t aggression. I mean this is just such a tired defense of statism. Conservatives and liberal alike are saying: oh, we value liberty, but it’s not the only thing we value. i.e., “I believe aggression is justified for xyz reasons, but I don’t want to say I do.”

And sometimes they admit it. But that means they do indeed have “other values” than the libertarian: they value the commission of aggression in some circumstances. But it’s hard to get them to to admit this–though sometimes they do–because, you know, it makes them sound like a common criminal or thug. After all, criminals value property among themselves, but have their grounds attempting to justify their other acts of theft and destruction. Basically these people have no argument. It is incoherent to engage in rational, civilized discourse among people who presumptively respect each other’s right to exist, be alive, and discuss things as equals, in an attempt to reach a civilized agreement on how we should arrange our affairs so as to live in peace and prosperity and cooperation and harmony–when one is urging brutish interpersonal violence. Does not compute.

In short: when you hear a liberal or conservative say that libertarians are “too simplistic” and “only value liberty,” whereas they are more nuanced and value liberty but a host of other values too–understand them to be offering a rationalization for why they favor violence and aggression against innocent people.

Update: A commentator adds this:

“Liberty isn’t the only value” he said, while pointing his gun at my head.

This about sums it up. It reminds me of one of my favorite Ayn Rand quotes (from Francisco D’Anconia’s “Money Speech” in  Atlas Shrugged):

“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”

Likewise, be very wary of people who say they value liberty, but it’s not the “only” thing they value. They are making it clear that they are about to propose violating your liberty.

Update: Steve Horwitz says here:

your description of libertarianism is not mine Bob. I *would* be willing to take people’s property against their will IF I really believed that it was true that doing so would make the world a better place on net and in the long run. I don’t think it would, hence I think it would be wrong to do. But it’s wrong, in my view, not because it abridges liberty per se, but because that abridgement of liberty hurts the people it’s trying to help. So for me, liberty is NOT the highest political end. It’s one among many ends, and it’s also a means to many of those ends.

Unlike you it seems, I would be willing to give up liberty if I really thought doing so would produce a world of peace and prosperity for all.

As I wrote in response:

I guess someone could say:

“I *would* be willing to endorse/commit genocide IF I really believed that it was true that doing so would make the world a better place on net and in the long run. I don’t think it would, hence I think it would be wrong to do.”

Well good for them!

Pretty much everyone knows–or should know–that many, and maybe most, of the points made by most politicians are of little value, amounting to little more than equine feces at best. A commercial I saw the other day illustrated that the same is true of TV commercials. (Yes, I realize that’s no discovery. But still…) The advertisement I saw featured a clean-cut young man making a pitch to “buy American-made gasoline at Kwik Fill” because doing so “strengthens our economy.” Do people believe that type of thing? The short answer is:  Yes. How do I know? Because presidents–and presidential candidates–have been saying pretty much the same thing for close to 4 decades, beginning with Nixon and continuing right up through Obama.

Rachel Maddow–not exactly a standard-bearer for libertarian ideals and the power of the free market–demolished this lunacy on her show, and the episode is immortalized on YouTube, under the appropriate title, “Oil Is Oil Is Oil.” There is no such thing as “foreign” oil and there is no such thing as “domestic” oil. There is no way to purchase oil from domestic sources or that “benefits Americans only.” Maddow covers many valid points in the video–which is recommended viewing–but in economics-speak, oil is fungible. As such, the concept of energy independence by lessening the U.S. dependence on foreign oil is just the same old jingoistic bird cage liner scrapings. All oil is sold on an international market and all oil is purchased from that same place. Which service station you use is largely irrelevant.

Admittedly, Maddow makes a couple points with which I disagree, most notably in her suggestion that we can affect positive change by lessening our overall dependence on oil. To that suggestion, my response would be “Why?” To what purpose should we–users of energy–attempt to cut back on our usage of energy? To what purpose should we–people who benefit from all manner of conveniences due directly to the technology of fossil fuels–attempt to change our ways? I can only assume that Maddow believes, like many liberals, and many conservatives, that the consumer should react to policy concerns versus market signals. If oil is the cheapest alternative, then the consumer should continue to buy it, period. If, and when, oil becomes so rare as to not be the cheapest alternative (and/or the best technological alternative) the costs should reflect it, and we consumers will move on to something else. (The costs will reflect it, unless the government gets in the way.) The problem is not over-dependence on oil. The problem is lack of understanding of basic economics, the market, and the ramifications of supply and demand.

Of more concern to me, and maybe more importance, is this:  If this type of obviously-flawed economics thinking, as evidenced by that commercial, has pervaded presidential talking points for forty years and continues to pervade TV advertising even now, how much more horribly flawed information flows unabated?

Bottom Line:  I guess they don’t call it the idiot box for nothing.

Cross-posted at the LRCBlog.

Last year I presented four Mises Academy Mises Academy courses:

• “Rethinking Intellectual Property” (a reprise of one taught previously in 2010);
• “Libertarian Legal Theory”;
• “Libertarian Controversies”; and
• “The Social Theory of Hoppe“.
• Plus: “Obama’s Patent Reform: Improvement or Continuing Calamity?,” a Mises Academy webinar.

The audio and slides for the first three courses listed can be found in those links; those for the Hoppe course are appended below. The Hoppe course is discussed in my article “Read Hoppe, Then Nothing Is the Same,” translated into Spanish as “Tras leer a Hoppe, nada es lo mismo“; see also Danny Sanchez’s post Online Hoppe Course Starts Tomorrow. I enjoyed all four courses but my favorite was the Hoppe course. Hoppe has been the biggest intellectual influence of my life, as I detail in “How I Became A Libertarian” (published as “Being a Libertarian” in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians). I agree with Sanchez that “Hans-Hermann Hoppe is the most profound social theorist writing today.” This is one reason I worked with the brilliant Austro-libertarian theorist, and one of my best friends, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, and one of the greatest guys in the world, to produce the well-received and well-deserved festschrift, Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Mises Institute, 2009).

The experience of teaching the Mises Academy classes was amazing and gratifying, as I noted in my article  “Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course.” This and similar technology and Internet-enabled models are obviously the wave of the educational future. The students received an in-depth, specialized and personalized treatment of topics of interest to them, with tests and teacher and fellow student interaction, for a very reasonable price, and judging by their comments and evaluations, they were very satisfied with the courses and this online model. For example, for the Hoppe course, as noted in A Happy Hoppean Student, student Cam Rea wrote, about the first lecture of the course:

Move over Chuck Norris, Hans-Hermann Hoppe is in town! The introduction to “The Social Theory of Hoppe” was extremely thorough. I, a relative newcomer to the Hoppean idea, was impressed by Stephan Kinsella’s introduction to the theory. Mr. Kinsella hit upon all of those who came before Hoppe, and how each built upon another over the past two centuries. In other words, as Isaac Newton stated, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Hoppe is the result thus far of those who came before him in the ideals of Austrian Economics and libertarian principles. Nevertheless, Hoppe takes it much further as in the Misesian concept of human action and the science of “praxeology”, from which all actions branch in life.

Overall, the class was extremely enjoyable, the questions concrete, and the answer provided by Mr. Kinsella clear and precise. Like many others in the class, I look forward to more. So tune in next Monday at 7pm EDT. Same Hoppe-time, same Hoppe-channel!

“The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.”

“Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.”

“Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.”

“Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.”

“It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.”

“Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.”

And:

Thank you so very much for all the excellent work — very few classes have really changed my life dramatically, actually only 3 have, and all 3 were classes I took at the Mises Academy, starting with Rethinking Intellectual Property (PP350) (the other two were EH476 (Bubbles), and PP900 (Private Defense)). …

My purposes for taking the classes are: 1. just for the fun of it, 2. learning & self-education, and 3. to understand what is happening with some degree of clarity so I can eventually start being part of the solution where I live — or at least stop being part of the problem.

The IP class was a total blast — finally (finally) sound reasoning. All the (three) classes I took dramatically changed the way I see the world. I’m still digesting it all, to tell the truth. Very few events in my life have managed to make me feel like I wished I was 15 all over again. Thank you. …

[M]uch respect and admiration for all the great work done by all the members of the whole team.

Students would often give real-time feedback, in comments such as the following at the end of the lectures (these are from the actual IP-lecture chat transcripts):

• “Thank you, great lecture!”
• “Thanks, excellent lecture.”
• “Great job.”
• “Great lecture!”
• “Thank you, Sir. Great lecture!”
• “Thanks for an excellent talk.”

Student reaction to the first lecture of my Libertarian Legal Theory course can be found in Student Comments for First Lecture of Libertarian Legal Theory Course: Not Too Late to Sign Up!:

“The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.”

“Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.”

“Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.”

“Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.”

“It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.”

“Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.”

Now, that is very gratifying to a teacher. It’s immediate feedback. And it’s a good example of what I mentioned in “Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course”:

These heartfelt and spontaneous comments reminded me a bit of times past, when students would applaud at the end of a good lecture by a professor. In this sense, and contrary to what you might expect with the coarsening of manners and the increase of informality in typical Internet fora, for some reason the new, high-tech environment created by Mises Academy seems to foster a return to Old World manners and civility — which is very Misesian indeed! Perhaps it is because these students are all 100 percent voluntary, and they want to learn. They are much like students decades ago, who were grateful to get into college — before state subsidies of education and the entitlement mentality set in, turning universities into playgrounds for spoiled children who often skip the classes, paid for 10 percent by parents and 90 percent by the taxpayer.

The audio and slides for all six lectures of the Social Theory of Hoppe course are provided below. The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended to the end of this post.

Update: the audio files may also be subscribed to in this podcast feed. (In iTunes (for Windows) you can subscribe to podcast by copying the feed address to iTunes>Advanced>Subscribe to podcast; on Macs, you can click on the link to have iTunes add it to podcasts.)

LECTURE 1: PROPERTY FOUNDATIONS

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 2: TYPES OF SOCIALISM AND THE ORIGIN OF THE STATE

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 3: LIBERTARIAN RIGHTS AND ARGUMENTATION ETHICS

(mp3 download)

Lecture 4: EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY AND DUALISM; KNOWLEDGE, CERTAINTY, LOGICAL POSITIVISM

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 5: ECONOMIC ISSUES AND APPLICATIONS

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 6: POLITICAL ISSUES AND APPLICATIONS; HOPPE Q&A

(mp3 download)

SUGGESTED READING MATERIAL

The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended below. The links were internal Mises Academy links so would not work here, and I had no time to add individual links for all of them, but until I find time to code in the links, most of these materials can be found on stephankinsella.com/publications, c4sif.org/resources, mises.org, hanshoppe.com/publications, or on Wikipedia or by google search. (If there is a particular link you cannot find online, email me or add to the comments, and I’ll try to find it and update the post with that link.)

LECTURE 1: PROPERTY FOUNDATIONS

• Chapters 1 & 2, Theory of Socialism and Capitalism [TSC]

LECTURE 2: TYPES OF SOCIALISM AND THE ORIGIN OF THE STATE

• TSC Chs. 3-6 URL
• De-Socialization in a United Germany URL
• “Banking, Nation States and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order” (ch. 3 of EEPP)

LECTURE 3: LIBERTARIAN RIGHTS AND ARGUMENTATION ETHICS

• Kinsella, “Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide” URL
• Hoppe: EEPP, chapter 11, “From the Economics of Laissez Faire to the Ethics of Libertarianism,” ch. 12. “The Justice of Economic Efficiency,” and “Appendix: Four Critical Replies” URL

• Kinsella, “New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory” URL
• “On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property,” by Hoppe URL
• # “Beyond Is and Ought,” by Murray N. Rothard URL
• “Hoppephobia,” by Rothbard URL
• “Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan,” by Stephan Kinsella URL
• “Argumentation Ethics and The Philosophy of Freedom,” by Frank Van Dun URL
• “Hülsmann on Argumentation Ethics,” by Kinsella

LECTURE 4: EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY AND DUALISM; KNOWLEDGE, CERTAINTY, LOGICAL POSITIVISM

• A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, Pages 118-144 and 152-155 URL
• Economic Science and the Austrian Method URL
• Is Research Based on Causal Scientific Principles Possible in the Social Sciences? (ch. 10 of EEPP) URL
• In Defense of Extreme Rationalism: Thoughts on Donald McCloskey’s The Rhetoric of Economics URL

• Chapter 9. “On Praxeology and the Praxeological Foundation of Epistemology”; ch. 14. “Austrian Rationalism in the Age of the Decline of Positivism” (from EEPP) URL
• On Certainty and Uncertainty, Or: How Rational Can Our Expectations Be? URL
• The Science of Human Action (lecture)

LECTURE 5: ECONOMIC ISSUES AND APPLICATIONS

• Hoppe on Property Rights in Physical Integrity vs Value URL
• Hoppe on Liberal Economies and War URL
• Hoppe: Marx was “Essentially Correct” URL
• Capitalist Production and The Problem of Monopoly (TSC) URL
• Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory & the Production of Security URL
• Verstehen and the Role of Economics in Forecasting, or: If You’re so Rich, Why Aren’t You Smart?, URL
• “Chicago Diversions” in The Ethics and Economics of Private Property URL
• Kinsella, “Knowledge vs. Calculation” URL

• The Misesian Case against Keynes URL
• The Limits of Numerical Probability: Frank H. Knight and Ludwig von Mises and the Frequency of Interpretation URL
• A Note on Preference and Indifference in Economic Analysis URL
• Socialism: A Property or Knowledge Problem?

LECTURE 6: POLITICAL ISSUES AND APPLICATIONS; HOPPE Q&A

n/a

Papinian (Aemilius Papinianus), famous Roman jurist, who wrote, ""It is easier to commit murder than to justify it.” when he refused to come up with an argument justifying a murder, and was himself put to death.

Last year I presented a 6 week Mises Academy course, “Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society,” discussed in my Mises Daily article “Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory.” This course followed on the heels of my previous Mises Academy course, “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics” (audio and slides), about which one student wrote me at the completion of the course,

Thank you so very much for all the excellent work — very few classes have really changed my life dramatically, actually only 3 have, and all 3 were classes I took at the Mises Academy, starting with Rethinking Intellectual Property (PP350) (the other two were EH476 (Bubbles), and PP900 (Private Defense)). …

My purposes for taking the classes are: 1. just for the fun of it, 2. learning & self-education, and 3. to understand what is happening with some degree of clarity so I can eventually start being part of the solution where I live — or at least stop being part of the problem.

The IP class was a total blast — finally (finally) sound reasoning. All the (three) classes I took dramatically changed the way I see the world. I’m still digesting it all, to tell the truth. Very few events in my life have managed to make me feel like I wished I was 15 all over again. Thank you. …

[M]uch respect and admiration for all the great work done by all the members of the whole team.

For more student feedback on Rethinking IP, see Kinsella’s Rethinking Intellectual Property course: Audio and Slides. The Libertarian Legal Theory course also received very positive comments and reviews.

(Student reaction to the first lecture of the Libertarian Legal Theory course can be found in Student Comments for First Lecture of Libertarian Legal Theory Course: Not Too Late to Sign Up!)

The students also evidently really enjoyed the lecture. Here are some of the comments from the chat session, near the end of the lecture (unedited except I have removed surnames):

[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:12:25 PM EST] Patrick : This is excellent, best Mises class yet
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:46:52 PM EST] Karl : ok, thanks, nice class
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:47:01 PM EST] Jock : very good
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:47:40 PM EST] Robert : thanks for the lecture, it was great! see you guys next time
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:05 PM EST] Kevin : awesome – thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:17 PM EST] Amanda : Thanks for a wonderful class. Good night!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:38 PM EST] Daniel: Thank you!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:41 PM EST] Roger: Terrific class, thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:42 PM EST] Patrick : thank you
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:42 PM EST] Steven: Great lecture. Thanks
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:43 PM EST] George: Great class ‘night
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:44 PM EST] Mark: Very good class. Thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:45 PM EST] Cheryl: Thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:46 PM EST] Danny Sanchez : Thanks for attending everyone!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:46 PM EST] safariman : Good class! Thanks
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:48 PM EST] Patti : thanks. bye
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:50 PM EST] Jonathan: Thanks!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:51 PM EST] Colin: Thanks.
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:52 PM EST] Thomas : Thank You!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:56 PM EST] Erika : Thank you!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:56 PM EST] Danny Sanchez : thanks for the great lecture Stephan!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:02 PM EST] Derrick : Thanks
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:14 PM EST] Robert: thx
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:29 PM EST] Noam: Thanks a lot!
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:29 PM EST] Robert: GREAT first lecture
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:33 PM EST] Matthew : Great lecture thanks
[Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:54 PM EST] Matt Gilliland : Thanks so much! Best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten, I think.

This echoed the type of comments students provided in real-time in the Rethinking IP course, in comments such as the following at the end of the lectures (these are from the actual IP-lecture chat transcripts):

• “Thank you, great lecture!”
• “Thanks, excellent lecture.”
• “Great job.”
• “Great lecture!”
• “Thank you, Sir. Great lecture!”
• “Thanks for an excellent talk.”

Now, that is very gratifying to a teacher. It’s immediate feedback. And it’s a good example of what I mentioned in “Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course”:

These heartfelt and spontaneous comments reminded me a bit of times past, when students would applaud at the end of a good lecture by a professor. In this sense, and contrary to what you might expect with the coarsening of manners and the increase of informality in typical Internet fora, for some reason the new, high-tech environment created by Mises Academy seems to foster a return to Old World manners and civility — which is very Misesian indeed! Perhaps it is because these students are all 100 percent voluntary, and they want to learn. They are much like students decades ago, who were grateful to get into college — before state subsidies of education and the entitlement mentality set in, turning universities into playgrounds for spoiled children who often skip the classes, paid for 10 percent by parents and 90 percent by the taxpayer.

The audio and slides for all six lectures of the Libertarian Legal Theory course are provided below. The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended to the end of this post.

Update: the audio files may also be subscribed to in this podcast feed. (In iTunes (for Windows) you can subscribe to podcast by copying the feed address to iTunes>Advanced>Subscribe to podcast; on Macs, you can click on the link to have iTunes add it to podcasts.)

LECTURE 1: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 2: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW (continued)

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 3: APPLICATIONS I: LEGAL SYSTEMS, CONTRACT, FRAUD

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 4: CAUSATION, AGGRESSION, RESPONSIBILITY

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 5: INTELLECTUAL ROPERTY AND RELATED

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 6: APPLICATIONS CONTINUED; COMMON LIBERTARIAN MISTAKES (FRAUD ETC.)

(mp3 download)

SUGGESTED READING MATERIAL

The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended below.

LECTURE 1: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW

SUGGESTED READINGS

• Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, chs. 4-5, 15
• Kinsella, “Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory” (all)
• Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is” (all)
• “Chicago Diversions” section of Hoppe, “The Ethics and Economics of Private Property“
• Kinsella, “Utilitarianism” discussion, Against Intellectual Property, pp. 19-23
• Rothbard’s discussion of the “relevant technological unit” in “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution“
• Kinsella, “The Division of Labor as the Source of Grundnorms and Rights”
• Kinsella, “Empathy and the Source of Rights“
• Rand, “Man’s Rights“
• Tucker & Kinsella, “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce“
• Kinsella, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist”

OPTIONAL READINGS

Libertarianism

• Jacob Huebert, Libertarianism Today (print; scribd; google books) (various topics) [for lecture 1: chapter 1]
• Dean Russell, “Who Is A Libertarian?“. The Freeman (1955)
• Rothbard, For A New Liberty, ch. 1 (“The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism”)
• “Libertarianism,” Wikipedia

Austrian Economics

• “Austrian School” entry, Mises Wiki
• Rockwell, Why Austrian Economics Matters
• What Is Austrian Economics? (Mises Institute)

Rights, Ethics, Philosophy

• Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, ch. 7 [optional, but highly recommended]; also chs. 1 and 2
• James A. Sadowsky, S.J., “Private Property and Collective Ownership“
• discussion of Rothbard’s conception of “relevant technological unit” in B.K. Marcus, “The Spectrum Should Be Private Property: The Economics, History, and Future of Wireless Technology“
• “Is-ought problem,” Wikipedia

Argumentation Ethics

• Kinsella, “New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory“
• Kinsella, “Defending Argumentation Ethics“

Anarchy

• Hoppe, “The Idea of a Private Law Society“
• George H. Smith, “Justice Entrepreneurship In a Free Market“
• Tannehills, The Market for Liberty
• Alfred G. Cuzán, “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?“
• Randy E. Barnett, ch. 14, “Imagining a Polycentric Constitutional Order: A Short Fable,” in The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law [not online; some available on google books]

Bibliographies

• Kinsella, “The Greatest Libertarian Books“
• LewRockwell.com Bibliographies: Hans-Hermann Hoppe on Anarcho-Capitalism, David Gordon on Liberty, and Lew Rockwell on Reading for Liberty

LECTURE 2: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW (continued)

SUGGESTED READINGS

• Tucker & Kinsella, “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce“
• Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is” (all)
• Kinsella, “The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld“
• Kinsella, “Why Spam is Trespass“
• Kinsella, “Stalking as a Form of Aggression“
• Kinsella, “Stalking and Threats as Aggression“
• Kinsella, “Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach“
• Kinsella, “The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression“
• Kinsella, “The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats“
• Kinsella, “Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach,” pages 68-69 (re “threats”)
• Rothbard, “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution“
• Kinsella, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist“
• Hoppe, “The Idea of a Private Law Society“

OPTIONAL READINGS

Scarcity and Rights

• Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, ch. 7 [optional, but highly recommended]; p. 158 note 120; also chs. 1 and 2

Rights and the Structure of Action

• Kinsella, “Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright“

Argumentation Ethics

• Rothbard, “Beyond Is and Ought“

• George H. Smith, “Justice Entrepreneurship In a Free Market“
• Tannehills, The Market for Liberty
• Alfred G. Cuzán, “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?“
• Randy E. Barnett, ch. 14, “Imagining a Polycentric Constitutional Order: A Short Fable,” in The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law [not online; some available on google books]

Legal Positivism and Logical Positivism

• Kinsella, “Logical and Legal Positivism“
• Legal Positivism
• legal realism
• Holmes’s bad-man theory of law
• Logical Positivism
• Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, p.5 [logical positivism]
• Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 127-36 (ch. 6) [logical positivism]

Other

• Geoffrey Allan Plauché, Aristotelian Liberalism: An Inquiry into the Foundations of a Free and Flourishing Society ch. 4, pp. 93-94 [on "assertoric hypotheticals"]
• Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, ch. 15 [rights as property rights]
• Rothbard’s conception of the Relevant Technological Unit

LECTURE 3: APPLICATIONS I: LEGAL SYSTEMS, CONTRACT, FRAUD

LECTURE 4: CAUSATION, AGGRESSION, RESPONSIBILITY

LECTURE 5: INTELLECTUAL ROPERTY AND RELATED

Suggested Readings

• Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property
• —–, Innovations that Thrive without IP
• —–, The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files
• —–, Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and “Rearranging”

LECTURE 6: APPLICATIONS CONTINUED; COMMON LIBERTARIAN MISTAKES (FRAUD ETC.)

• Kinsella, Rothbard on Corporations and Limited Liability for Tort
• —–, Legitimizing the Corporation and Other Posts
• —–, Corporations and Limited Liability for Torts
• —–, In Defense of the Corporation

Other

• Kinsella, How We Come To Own Ourselves

[PFS]

Nice article in Investor’s Business Daily on Mises, which quotes extensively from TLS blogger Jeff Tucker and Austrians Bettina Bien Greaves and Mark Thornton:

Let Free Markets Work, Said Ludwig Von Mises

By PETER BENESH, FOR INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 12/13/2011 01:47 PM ET

Ludwig von Mises was born in Ukraine, studied in Vienna, fought in World War I, and in 1940 landed in America, where he lectured and wrote books. View Enlarged Image

If he were around today to see the economic mess in the U.S. and Europe, Ludwig von Mises would be entitled to a big, fat “I told you so.”

Mises held that whenever government tinkers with the economy, especially the money supply, it screws things up.

Natural market forces do a better job of ironing out inflation, ending a recession and boosting employment, he said and wrote.

Though he lived to age 92, from his birth in 1881 in what is now Ukraine to his death in 1973 in New York City, Mises never drew the plaudits he deserved, says Jeffrey Tucker, executive editor of Laissez Faire Books, a libertarian publisher and bookseller owned by financial forecasting firm Agora Financial.

“Mises deserves every bit as much recognition as his contemporary, Albert Einstein,” Tucker told IBD.

Read more>>

Nice post from Austrian economist (and fellow Rush fanatic) Steve Horwitz, on the Coordination Problem blog:

Pausing to Note the Continued Upward Climb of Humanity

Steven Horwitz

With a new study out today that provides evidence that those who approach their lives with a spirit of gratitude (when it’s deserved of course) to others score higher across a whole number of measures of well-being, it’s worth taking a moment for some “social gratitude.”

In a world of pepper-spraying cops, genital-groping TSA agents, and a debt-to-GDP ratio that’s topped 100 percent, it’s sometimes hard to find the good, but despite the ankle weights the state keeps attaching to us, humanity keeps running, moving ever upward.

In the long view, life expectancy continues to rise as do literacy rates.  Slavery is in long-run retreat and illegal in every country, and despite the apparent desire of US politicians of both parties to declare war on every small country in the mid-east, deaths from war continue to fall and violence in general continues its decline.  Every day the news is full of new secular miracles, from 3-D printers that can produce the head for Jeff Dunham’s new dummy to medical procedures that save lives that would have been lost even as recently as a few years ago.  The average American household continues to be able to afford fantastic toys that the rich of a generation ago could not have imagined, and poor Americans today are more likely to own basic necessities (not to mention “toys”) than was the average American household a generation ago.

And perhaps most important:  a diminishing percentage of humanity lives on less than $1 per day, and global income inequality is falling as well.

Even as freedom retreats in some quarters, the freedoms we have left continue to improve the lot of humanity in ways our ancestors could only dream of.  The sad part is that we continue to weight and shackle ourselves in ways that are slowing that progress from what it could have been.  We do so because too many are too skeptical about the benefits of freedom and those with power (or who want it) are all too willing to take advantage of that skepticism to serve their own interests, both political and corporate.

As we pause to recognize all we are grateful for today, let’s also re-commit ourselves to the task at hand, which is to understand the degree to which free people under the right institutions can maximize the degree of social cooperation, peace, and prosperity made possible by the progressive extension of the division of labor and exchange.  And let’s further re-commit ourselves to taking what we’ve learned and spreading it to the four corners of the Earth so that the cornucopia so many enjoy in the West can be the reality not just for every American, but for all of humanity.

Canadian libertarian Michael McConkey has an interesting fictional exchange between himself and Socrates up at My Dinner with Socrates:

The other day I met this sandal-wearing, hipster dude who thought he had all the answers (and questions), but I set him straight when it came to the morality of the state. I thought you might enjoy reading a transcript of our dinner conversation.

Read more>>

Here is an edited version of a note I sent him about this piece.

Not bad, but I think you go astray by saying creation is a source of ownership. It’s not. This is the mistake people make that leads them to support intellectual property. In fact the only source of ownership is homesteading or original appropriation: finding some unowned thing and appropriating it. And, this implies that there is a second way to own something: by contractual transfer of title from a previous owner. That is it.

It is true that you can create wealth or value by production. But this just means to transform (with creativity and labor) something you already own. To produce you have to already own the thing you rearrange.

Creation is a source of wealth. Not of ownership or property rights.

Likewise, your comment here:

We don’t just use up our life – perhaps we do that when we go for a hike, say – but property is an enduring embodiment of our life. The tomato I grow in my back yard, the book I write, the money I am paid by an employer for the productive work I provide, are all embodiments of my life. My finite time, energy and attention are literally embodied in these things and stuff: tomatoes, books, money, etc.

is imprecise and overly metaphorical. The use of “literally” is wrong. I know what you are getting at but this is not rigorous argument. If I steal from you the loaf of bread you have baked, it is wrong becuase it is your property (or more precisely, you have a property right in the loaf of bread). It’s only a metaphorical way of looking at it to say that I have stolen your “labor”. It’s just literally not true. You don’t own your labor; it is not “in” the bread. Labor is just a type of action. You don’t own your labor any more than you own your actions or your memories or your tendency to procrastinate.

For more on the creation stuff, see my Against Intellectual Property; also Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and “Rearranging”; Libertarian Creationism; Rand on IP, Owning “Values”, and “Rearrangement Rights”; Locke, Smith, Marx and the Labor Theory of Value; this comment to “Trademark and Fraud”; Elaborations on Randian IP; Objectivists on IP.

For the danger of misuse of metaphors, see Thoughts on Intellectual Property, Scarcity, Labor-ownership, Metaphors, and Lockean Homesteading and On the Danger of Metaphors in Scientific Discourse.

Recommended podcasts:

• Aaron Burr and the Challenge to Jefferson’s America, KERA Think, Dec. 1, 2011 (“Who fostered imperial dreams for the young United States of America? We’ll explore the life and story of our country’s third vice president this hour with historian David O. Stewart. His new book is American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America“);
• 238. Lew Rockwell Attacked By a Parasite, LewRockwell.com Podcasts, Dec. 2, 2011 (“Ron Smith talks to Lew Rockwell until a federal employee intervenes”. In the podcast, Lew quotes a great line from a recent Gary North column: “Europe’s game of kick the can will continue. The best summary of the outcome was made by a Spanish government worker on Sunday, November 20, the day of national elections. The socialists were thrown out of office. He said this: ‘We can choose the sauce they will cook us in, but we’re still going to be cooked.’”).

I noted previously, in The Prophetic Dr. Hoppe on the Rise of the Phoenix, Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s prediction years ago of the inexorable move to a single, worldwide fiat currency. It’s coming. As reported here back in 2009, “The dollar dropped after China’s central bank reiterated a call for a worldwide currency.”

In this connection, see Hoppe’s fascinating discussion of money starting about 1:05:17 of Lecture 3 of his riveting 10-part Economy, Society, and History lectures delivered in 2004, where he talks about the tendency on a free market of multiple “monies” to converge to one–by the nature of money, it’s more valuable the more widespread it is, etc. Hoppe notes that there is a similar tendency now, with fiat currencies, only this time, it’s bad, not good. He points out that the world had alreayd achieved free market unified money (gold); this was destroyed with the outgrowth of dozens of country-based paper monies, leading to a world in a state of quasi-barter; and now when the major currencies like the dollar, yen, euro, talk about monetary unification, they are moving back towards what we already had with gold, except without the relatively fixed supply and other salutary aspects of a commodity-based money.

Part of this process is cementing the position of the Euro as one of the world’s major currencies. And this is happening too. As reported in the NYTimes, Germany and France are now pushing for changes to the European treaties to extend and prop up the euro–with “automatic penalties for countries that exceed European deficit limits as well as the creation of a monetary fund for Europe. … European leaders will begin to change the fundamental structure of the union, creating a form of centralized oversight of national budgets.”

As I noted earlier, in Greece, the Euro, and Secession, in a 2004 LRC post, How Stupid are Europeans?, I observed that unless an explicit right to secede or exit from the then-proposed European Constitution were added, any countries joining would likely be prevented by force from leaving later. Happily, the EU Constitution was never finally ratified, due to the heroic stubbornness of French and Dutch citizens.

The problem FDR faced in 1938 was not all that different from that faced by President Obama and the Congress today. The bad economic times stretch on and on, and there is open talk of high unemployment as far as the eye can see. After years of claiming to see “green shoots,” officials are downplaying the chance of substantial economic recovery.

And it’s not just in the U.S.; the problem exist in Europe too, where there is a widespread belief that the European Union, as symbolized by Euro, cannot last. The OECD just predicted a double dip recession pending in the UK.

At the midpoint of Roosevelt’s second term in office, a profound fear gripped the White House that there was no real answer to the depression that seemed to continue on and on. Every respite was followed by yet another plunge in productivity, and clearly unemployment would not improve. Unemployment was 18%, which was higher than two years earlier. (Note that the broadest measure of U.S. employment today is 17+%.)

It is a documented fact that his advisers were the first to draw his attention to the possibility of stoking international problems involving the far East. Japan was the target and a series of embargoes, demands, sanctions, and diplomatic moves reinforced that the point of inspiring a massive movement in the U.S. to push for peace.

Responsible writers at the time drew attention to the plot and speculated about what was really going on. The history of the journalism of this entire period came to be buried in the ash heap of history following the Second World War. But it remains a fact that historians cannot and do not deny: FDR saw advantages in war and dearly wanted the U.S. involved – and that is true regardless of whether you believe that Pearl Harbor constituted his “back door to the war.”

It was hardly the first or last time that the U.S. government pursued war as the ultimate stimulus package. Of course, as Robert Higgs has demonstrated, the war didn’t stimulate anything. It sent the unemployed off to foreign lands to kill and be killed. It gave a pretext to demand massive material sacrifices on the home front. It distracted the public from the obvious failures of the New Deal. The recovery didn’t begin until government spending and regulation were slashed following the war.

Wars have long worked as a salve for serious political problems. Clinton used war in Bosnia, Somalia, and Yugoslavia to bolster a faltering presidency, and Bush followed suit with massive wars on Afghanistan and Iraq that provided a temporary boost. Obama inherited these ongoing conflicts and even increased U.S. involved but both are out of the news and provide no real opportunities for executive heroics.

And so one worries. The U.S. is setting up de facto military bases in Australia while offering a variety of diplomatic warnings against China’s policies with its neighbors. This prompted the head of People’s Liberation Army, Major General Luo Yuan, to proclaim that the U.S. is trying to “encircle” China. He said that “the intent is very clear — this is aimed at China, to contain China.”

This move was followed within days by a ghastly and presumably errant attack on Pakistan that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The U.S. apologized and swore it would investigate fully, but everyone knows what that means: what’s past is past. What’s more, this attack occurred only hours after a meeting between Pakistan’s army chief and the head of U.S. operations in Afghanistan at which both sides agreed to more cooperation.

China reacted extremely strongly to this news from Pakistan, with sharp rhetoric and unleashed moral condemnation. “The soil nurturing terrorism will become even more fertile,” said the China state newspaper, and reasonably so, “and the space for terrorism to spread even broader.”

It is a striking observations that most Americans are not willing to contemplate. How do you fight terror when you are daily engaged in bloody activities that can only inspire the creation of more terrorism? Another fundamental question is why this sudden belligerence against China at a time when the U.S. foreign policy priorities are presumed to be focused on the dangers of violent Islamic extremism?

These events together constitute, in the old phrase, “a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand.” Following the end of the Cold War, many Washington warmongers began the search for a new enemy to sustain the imperial overreach of the U.S. government. China was first on the list, but robust trading relationships and amazing growth rates made a military strategy unviable. The U.S. eventually found its enemy and tensions with China abated.

But that was ten years ago, and the terrorist excuse for continuing the American empire indefinitely is wearing thin. The tables have turned to the point that the American people are more scared of TSA agents and custom officials than Islamic radicals. How long will people put up with giving up their rights and liberties under the anti-terrorism pretext?

Most profoundly, how much longer will people stand by and watch the systematic strangling of the American dream – their children unable to find jobs, the college degree ever more expensive and worthless, the political and central banking classes looting private wealth to prop up failed enterprises – all in the name of a “stimulus” that has not and cannot work?

If you were a member of the power elite – hated, protested, and questioned at every turn – war might look increasingly attractive.

There is a gross tragedy with all these events. We could have had peace. We could have had prosperity. It was all within our reach at the end of the Cold War. Instead, our leaders chose intervention and empire building. Chalmers Johnson is right: if there is hope for America, it is with dismantling the empire, not building it, much less trying to provoke another friendly nation into a bloody conflict.