(Love your “bujin” icon, BTW…but do you have permission from soke to use it? )

I took a gander at the comment section and I must say I feel dirty now. “Libertarian Fascism” is being decried … what? People proclaiming to be überhackers calling each other names. Little sense or rationality. George Orwell’s “300-post comment section of hate”. Fresh every day.

Recall that Michael Lind is the author of the “Ludwig von Hayek” article in Salon. It was later corrected, but still speaks to his ignorance. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/06/15/conservatives_economics_european/index.html

Even Krugman thinks that Lind is an ignoramus.

One of America’s new intellectual stars is a young writer named Michael Lind, whose contrarian essays on politics have given him a reputation as a brilliant enfant terrible. In 1994 Lind published an article in Harper’s about international trade, which contained the following remarkable passage:

“Many advocates of free trade claim that higher productivity growth in the United States will offset pressure on wages caused by the global sweatshop economy, but the appealing theory falls victim to an unpleasant fact. Productivity has been going up, without resulting wage gains for American workers. Between 1977 and 1992, the average productivity of American workers increased by more than 30 percent, while the average real wage fell by 13 percent. The logic is inescapable. No matter how much productivity increases, wages will fall if there is an abundance of workers competing for a scarcity of jobs — an abundance of the sort created by the globalization of the labor pool for US-based corporations.” (Lind 1994: )

What is so remarkable about this passage? It is certainly a very abrupt, confident rejection of the case for free trade; it is also noticeable that the passage could almost have come out of a campaign speech by Patrick Buchanan. But the really striking thing, if you are an economist with any familiarity with this area, is that when Lind writes about how the beautiful theory of free trade is refuted by an unpleasant fact, the fact he cites is completely untrue.

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ricardo.htm

I had to clarify his confusion by showing him that this is actually a critique of the ideology. So while Mises’s style may be incredibly suitable for the way he conducts his work (either critique or exposition), we may say that it’s also prone to be misquoted out of context. However, Jeffrey’s point that of all the books that Mises has written only these lines are used against him shows that this is not really Mises’s problem, but rather a case of dishonest, intellectual frauds clutching at straws in an attempt to smear him.

@ Kill Republicans

Thank you for your thoughtful reply to my letter. To wit…

Until a critical mass of Libertarains who think differently come forward and denounce this pro-Pincochet bias publicly and make it a contested issue, the American Libertarian movement will continue to have a “Pinochet Problem”, for better or for worse.

Since the late 60s, the libertarian movement has been opposed to support for all authoritarian regimes. In fact, that is one of the things that conservatives have attacked us for most vehemently (up to and including Ron Paul). Lind takes a relative handful and presents that as the majority.

I would think that Libertarians of all people would understand the fundamental problems with assigning collective guilt for individual crimes.

Yes, and I hope Lind would understand that, as well.

Well the obvious answer to that is it stains NIxon, Kissinger and his administration, not the institution of the Presidency, let alone “liberalism” or Big Government.

Our welfare-warfare state’s support for authoritarian regimes preceded Nixon … and succeeded him. It’s not the free market that taxes your income away to torturers.

I would be more interested in finding out about the Hayek-Pinochet thing.