Wednesday, August 8, 2012

why annihilation of caste is first, why principle matters

Murray N. Rothbard -  For A New Liberty, The Libertarian Manifesto
Moreover, principle and strategy merged in the decay of eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century liberal devotion to “abolitionism”—to the view that, whether the institution be slavery or any other aspect of statism, it should be abolished as quickly as possible, since the immediate abolition of statism, while unlikely in practice, was to be sought after as the only possible moral position. For to prefer a gradual whittling away to immediate abolition of an evil and coercive institution is to ratify and sanction such evil, and therefore to violate libertarian principles. As the great abolitionist of slavery and libertarian William Lloyd Garrison explained: “Urge immediate abolition as earnestly as we may, it will, alas! be gradual abolition in the end. We have never said that slavery would be overthrown by a single blow; that it ought to be, we shall always contend.”

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Ludwig von Mises - "The Problems of Inflation"

Presented at FEE on 3 April 1968. [1:07:18] --- worth remembering that this was delivered even before the gold convertibility of the US$ was suspended by the Nixon administration