Can you imagine how awesome a blog by Murray Rothbard would be? Or Mises Dailies by Mises himself? These great men were not given their full due in their lifetimes, because they were writing in the media era of the monolithic broadcast and the monolithic print run. With such a model, power and interest has a competitive advantage over truth. But the internet (at least the present “pre-net-neutrality” internet) is different. The truth will out, eventually, in a decentralized model. Just look at the phenomenal spread of Austrian thought in the past years under the editorial leadership of Lew Rockwell and Jeffrey Tucker.
All the same, it’s sad to think of the growth that might be possible if Mises and Rothbard were writing in the present media model, and were able to write in direct response to the pundits of today. How splendid would it be to read Rothbard crushing Krugman or Mises demolishing DeLong?
Fortunately the ideas of these men were timeless, and many presently-promoted fallacies can be sufficiently countered by simply quoting key passages from such works as Human Action and Man, Economy, and State.
And so, I will try to regularly post brief “posthumous refutations” in which I introduce and quote a mainstream article or video which betrays one of the multitude of common fallacies and biases which Mises or Rothbard exploded, and then introduce and quote a relevant passage to counter it. I hope such a treatment will be a helpful exposition of the timelessness of Mises’ and Rothbard’s thought to new students of Austrianism.
If you happen to come across any mainstream articles or videos that fit the above criteria, feel free to email them to me, and I will make sure to credit you with the find!
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“These great men were not given their full due in their lifetimes, because they were writing in the media era of the monolithic broadcast and the monolithic print run”
They were both given their full due actually.
Fourier is given his due, over at Cato
Sounds like fun
Good luck with the venture!
There would be more demolition of idiots who call themselves economists and much less, if any IP socialism, to be sure.
It would be awe inspiring to ask a virtualized Rothbard, Mises, Mencken, et el; any question. If more free markets reigned, perhaps this need would be filled sooner than later.
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