Fellow ALLien Shawn Wilbur, who’s a leading expert in the history of American anarchism, would like to hear from anyone interested in taking courses on this or related subjects online.
He’s also interested in feedback about broader plans to develop a left-libertarian counter-curriculum.
Sounds like a great idea to me. Check it out.
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
One of the best talks at this weekend’s Misesfest was by Robert Higgs; the text is now online.
1. I’m back from the Misesfest (appropriately held next to Grand Central Station, which Mises used to cite as an example to illustrate Austrian methodology). Great conference! My contribution, “Mises as Radical: Retrospective on Rothbard’s Thesis,” is now online.
A few other items:
2. One of the two NYC hotels I stayed in (the less fancy one) had the following sign posted in the passenger elevator: “This is not a passenger elevator. It is unlawful for any person other than the operator or those necessary for handling freight to ride on this elevator.” A law not rigorously enforced, I guess.
3. I’m sad to see that Laissez Faire Books, whose catalogues I’ve been getting since I was an undergraduate, is going out of business. But on reflection it’s not surprising; I realise I haven’t ordered anything from them for quite a while, and I suspect that’s true of many others as well, and for the same reason – in the age of the internet it’s just not as crucial a resource as it used to be.
4. On the science-fiction front, check out some major spoilers for Galactica: Razor (conical hat tip to Norm Singleton) and rumours of a brand-new Dune movie.
I just saw a commercial in which a girl acting in a school play suddenly breaks from the script and asks why soldiers should obey an unjust ruler’s order to go into battle, and why government should be allowed to serve only a few rather than everybody. Radical stuff, especially the former. (The latter is a pipe dream, though a well-intentioned one.)
So I went to the advertised website and discovered it’s some L. Ron Hubbard outfit. Does that mean the Scientologists are pushing military civil disobedience now? I didn’t know they swung that way.
Still, on said website one of the listed 21 Ethical Precepts is “Don’t Do Anything Illegal,” which would seem to conflict with the aforementioned suggestion of endorsing civil disobedience. Of course on a Socratic-Scholastic-Spoonerite understanding of law there’s no conflict, but is that what they mean?
I suppose I could satisfy my curiosity by shelling out 18 bucks for a bundle of booklets; but the last Hubbard tract I read did not awaken within me any desire to tackle another.
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
The latest issue (21.2) of the Journal of Libertarian Studies features James R. Edwards on the advantages of private charity over government welfare; Brian Smith on the implications of Tocqueville’s ideas for the prospects of free-market anarchy in a democratic culture; Raymond J. Krohn on the contrast between the genuine libertarianism of Lysander Spooner and the pseudo-libertarianism of the Jacksonian Democrats; Laurence Vance on the federalist case for the Kelo decision; David Gold on the origins of laissez-faire constitutionalism in resistance to pro-business legislation; Dan D’Amico on Alex Tabarrok’s anthology on private prisons; and Norbert Lennartz on Michael van Notten’s and Spencer MacCallum’s defense of Somali customary law.
Read a fuller summary of 21.2’s contents here.
Read summaries of previous issues under my editorship here.
Read back issues online here.
Subscribe here.
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Can’t remember if I announced this before, but information about the anarchy/minarchy anthology I co-edited with Tibor Machan is available here. As you’ll see, the book is coming out in February, is pricier than I’d like, and contains contributions from many familiar comrades, including Aeon Skoble, Charles Johnson, John Hasnas, Lester Hunt, Jan Narveson, and your humble correspondent.
Just be thankful it’s not as pricey as this book that Fred Miller and Carrie-Ann Biondi edited on the history of philosophy of law, which has two articles by me, one on the Socratics and one on the Hellenistics.