Anarchy Among the Austrians

As aforementioned, I spent last weekend at the Austrian Scholars Conference. Here’s a list of some of the presentations most likely to be of interest to readers of this blog:

• Irish philosopher Gerard Casey argued that recent historical research has largely confirmed Joseph Peden’s theses (see here and here) concerning the stateless or near-stateless character of ancient and medieval Ireland.
• Those who admit that stateless legal mechanisms might work for small tribes often deny that they could be effective in an advanced economy; Ed Stringham countered this objection by explaining how various sophisticated financial transactions in 17th-century Amsterdam received no protection from the state but nevertheless secured compliance via reputation effects.
• Vedran Vuk presented a paper detailing how a free-market military defense might operate, and in particular how it could avoid the free-rider problem.
• Gil Guillory presented a plausible and attractive business model for a private security agency.
• Geoff Plauché defended Aristotelean liberalism, whatever that is.
• Laurence Vance lectured on the libertarian ideas of Gerrit Smith, the 19th-century abolitionist, feminist, free-trader, and land reformer. (Laurence has also reprinted one of Smith’s books, The True Office of Civil Government; go to this page and scroll down to no. 123.)
• Tom Woods lectured on the significance for Austro-libertarians of the work of Seymour Melman, New Left critic of the military-industrial complex.
• Tom also described a forthcoming posthumous book by Murray Rothbard, Betrayal of the American Right, which apparently is as much an autobiography as it is a critique of the increased sidelining of libertarian ideas in the 20th century conservative movement.
• Joe Salerno argued that Lionel Robbins’ classic quasi-praxeological 1932 Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1st edition here; 2nd edition here) was not only influenced by Ludwig von Mises but, more controversially, was also an influence on Mises.

A few of these talks are online as audio files here.