Consider this the beginning of my list of complaints against the established “church” of the free-market. In the coming months, I want to raise a series of concerns that I have developed deriving from work with and reading of SOME other supposed supporters of liberty, markets and peaceful exchange. What does the saying go like, “with friends like these …” For those of you who are not the target of these posts, I still believe these will serve as useful guideposts for how I think a successful and important conversation about the value of markets and liberty should go, especially with folks who do not agree with you. We’ll start with a few, but there are lots more where these come from. I will hopefully be working up an analogous set of complaints against the typical anti-market views as well, but not until we spend some more time with these.
I’ll stop at 4 for now. I’ve got at least 20 more tucked in my head and I will unveil them in the coming weeks and months. Of course, your input is highly encouraged. What is all of this leading to? Well, I’d like to get to a point where I engage with folks who are serious about teaching me a few things and who are serious about learning a few things. I’d like to get to a point where we can be honest about what we hold as religious beliefs and what we are truly being “scientific” about. I am increasingly skeptical that there are many people who understand what it is that they believe in, what the logical conclusions of those beliefs are, and if they can articulate the sensible positions of folks who might disagree with them. Now look, I do not mean this to say that I do not value liberty as my most cherished value (I do, or at least I think I do) but it does mean that I am very aware of where the tensions in my view might be, and what thoughtful people who are seriously respectful of my view but who disagree, might point to in order to persuade me of something else. More to come, per usual.
It’s a common rhetorical tactic to divert an argument into what Irving Copi calls a “verbal dispute” over terminology just when someone thinks he is losing the argument.
I’m not too worried about a communist/socialist/collectivist revolution happening any time soon. What I do fear is the collapse of our currency and the economic doom that would follow that. The peasants have not stormed the ramparts; instead, government at all levels has been on a spending spree, and all those spent dollars have benefited us very little, especially if one considers how that capital might have been put to use in the private economy. So now, when it’s urgent that we put this spending in reverse, few people with political power seem to appreciate the magnitude of our economic problems.
Whew! I was a bit worried at the start since I’m Lutheran and I seem to recall you were Catholic. Part of the issue is that many of our words, such as socialism, are cliche (including, cliche itself). Need to read more, but my wife wants the computer.
We are paying attention, Wintercow!
It is good to call progressives progressives, and not derogitorially socialists, even though they believe in their hearts that they think socialism occupies the moral high ground. Just ask anyone from the University of Wisconsin or Trinity College.
It is right that we subject our principles to strict scrutiny.
Your remarks before AHI on behalf of AHIW, were a challenge to us all, to do our homework and spread the message of freedom.
Got a project in mind?
Michael,
Best wishes.
I am a Lutheran too, and so is Rod, and Mike is a Catholic since his name is Rizzo. Poor Mike spends his full day with Gaia worshippers.
I think Rizzo should get a raise over all the pilikea he suffers. Pilikea is a Hawaiian word for needless aggravation, and I am sorry for bringing in the animists, who also may be another reason for giving Rizzo a BIG raise for all the pilikea. Not to mention the Keyneseans from Kenya.
Mike, I agree that calling something socialistic is not persuasive unless it really is socialistic. But socialiism is an elusive noun. Fifty years ago you could find many students from nearly any university who used the S word proudly, but one would get a different definition from each, depending in how their professor defined it. Now nobody defines their beliefs as socialist, although “progressive” has come back into fashion.
Your comparison between Wintercowistan and Bastiatistan approaches the subject more powerfully, provided that your audience has the attention span to follow you each step of the way, which required for me to go back several times and not cheat by jumping to the end where the matador delivers the decisive stab, after watching the warm-up with the picadors.
I am not saying it is not worthwhile. It is a feat to get a handful of students converted to disciplined thinking.
Gosh, now I feel sorry for wintercow, Harry…he’s surrounded by Lutherans!
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