[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
I see that my article “Aristotle’s Egalitarian Utopia” is now online at Google Books. (The notice says “Some pages are omitted from this book preview,” but that seems to refer to the entire anthology, not specifically to my article, which is complete.) This is the paper I delivered at a conference in Niels Bohr’s house in Copenhagen almost exactly four years ago. It offers a somewhat libertarian spin on some of Aristotle’s political ideas.
William Gillis has tagged me with the question: What motivated you to start looking into Anarchist/Libertarian thought?
I’ve got a long version here, but the short version is: as a 15-year-old science fiction fan I read an article on “The Science Fiction of Ayn Rand” in the May 1979 Starlog; this led me to Ayn Rand’s novels, which led me to her nonfiction, which led me to read people she cited, and then to people they cited, and so on; hence I was soon reading Murray Rothbard, Isabel Paterson, David Friedman, etc. I resisted anarchism for an embarrassingly long time – but I was gradually growing more radical, thanks to my reading, to the influence of the Institute for Humane Studies (including such lecturers as Randy Barnett and Don Lavoie), and to events like the first Gulf War. On May 12, 1991, I decided I had finally become an anarchist.
I hereby tag everybody.
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.
Tomorrow I’m off to the Mises Institute’s 25th Anniversary Celebration in New York. Apart from the various talks by most of the iInstitute’s senior faculty, highlights include a bus tour of Misesian-Rothbardian landmarks; Guido signing his book; and some guy who’s running for President. I was asked to speak on the topic “Mises As Radical: Retrospective on Rothbard’s Thesis.” (For Mises’s radical side, see this piece; for his conservative side, see this one.) Später, gator!
I’m back from Orange Beach (which incidentally was filled with small flying bugs that had smaller bugs attached backward to them by their butts). Good conference, good food, good conversation, and I’m APS President again. Plus it didn’t rain all weekend.
Two news items of interest: why Britain really wanted the Falklands, and the thin blue line that protects us from student t-shirts. (Conical hat tip to LRC for both.)
First thing tomorrow morning I’m off to Orange Beach for the 2007 Alabama Philosophical Society annual conference. (Despite the picture, the forecast is for rain all weekend, so there’ll be few distractions from the pursuit of wisdom.) Später, gator!