Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (243):

It has been asserted that the physiological needs of all men are of the same kind and that this equality provides a standard for the measurement of the degree of their objective satisfaction. In expressing such opinions and in recommending the use of such criteria to guide the government's policy, one proposes to deal with men as the breeder deals with his cattle. But the reformers fail to realize that there is no universal principle of alimentation valid for all men. Which one of the various principles one chooses depends entirely on the aims one wants to attain. The cattle breeder does not feed his cows in order to make them happy, but in order to attain the ends which he has assigned to them in his own plans. He may prefer more milk or more meat or something else. What type of men do the man breeders want to rear — athletes or mathematicians? Warriors or factory hands? He who would make man the material of a purposeful system of breeding and feeding would arrogate to himself despotic powers and would use his fellow citizens as means for the attainment of his own ends, which differ from those they themselves are aiming at.

This line from Human Action strikes me as very funny:

If maximizing profits means that a man in all market transactions aims at increasing to the utmost the advantage derived, it is a pleonastic and periphrastic circumlocution. (243)

It is also a great example, I think, of autological grandiloquence.

Forwarded to me by my mother:

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still
valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to
4-letter words.

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my
husband I'd give you poison," and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows
or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether
I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston
Churchill

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great
pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" -
Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading
it." - Moses Hadas

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." -
Abraham Lincoln

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of
it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a
friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston
Churchill, "Cannot
possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston
Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." -
Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." -
Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." -
Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." Jack E.
Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." - Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human
knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." -
Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."- Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" -
Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar
Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather
than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder "

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

I hate it when people talk about socializing children.

Whether they realize it or not, they mean "socialize" the same way the word is used in the term "socialized medicine."

But even if you accept that they're talking about making sure children are sociable, making sure they have social skills, how did the schooling establishment manage to convince everyone that the government's schools were the necessary means toward those ends? Are we supposed to believe that no one was ever sociable before the 19th-century invention of compulsory schooling?

Furthermore, practically everyone who levels this supposed criticism (or voices it as a "concern") went to these types of schools! How do we make sense of that? Were they all popular? Were none of them subjected to long-term bullying? Most of my friends were neighborhood friends. Did these people live in neighborhoods where they were the only children? Did none of them go to church, scouts, camp, clubs, etc.? Really? All their friends were classmates and they all promoted mature and subtle social skills?

Well, I don't really see the need to debunk such an absurd idea — a belief that one could only maintain through deliberate thick headedness — but if you want some material to counter the socialization claims, I now have something to point you to.

Linda Schrock Taylor very kindly included me among the people she forwarded this article to:

"Socializing Homeschooled Students," by David W. Kirkpatrick

Here's the critical line:

"Largely unrecognized are studies that show youngsters who spend more time with their peers are more likely to develop peer standards than adult ones, and the earlier they begin peer-dominated experiences the more dysfunctional their values and attitudes may be."

Last year, I wrote,

… a great piece of silver trivia I'd never heard before:

In 1964, 3 silver dimes could buy you a gallon of gas (about 27¢/gallon); At the current rate of silver, the metal value of 3 silver dimes would be about $3, just enough for a gallon of gas.

I checked the math. Silver was $1.29/ounce in 1964, according to Kitco.com. Today's spot price is $12.93, again, according to Kitco. According to 1960sFlashback.com, gasoline was 30¢/gallon in 1964. And according to MSN, a gallon of gas in Charlottesville today ranges from $2.27 to $2.59/gallon.

So if anything, gasoline has gotten cheaper. At least by the silver standard. By the gold standard ($35.10/ounce in 1964 versus $650/ounce today), we should expect a gallon of gasoline to cost $5.55 in present dollars, so by gold-standard prices, gasoline prices have fallen significantly.…

Today's spot price for silver is $18.20. That would put a gallon of gas at $4.23.

In Charlottesville, gas prices range from $3.71 to $3.92 per gallon.

Just thought I'd offer an update. You can read the rest of last year's post for some background on the nature and history of money, inflation, coinage, etc.

Update: The "Silver Is Money" blog provides this handy chart:

I know a couple of westerners in Asia right now. One says it's the land of milk and honey. At least one notorious Randian I know has spent some time in China and thinks it's the great capitalist hope for the 21st century.

If these signs from Engrish.com are any indication, the right to discriminate is still respected in that part of the world (but the responsibility to communicate is not taken quite as seriously).

Click either image to enlarge and read the fine print.

(Thanks to Evan for forwarding these.)

Wendy McElroy's article for Liberty magazine on Rothbard's legacy ends on…

A Personal Note

Before closing, I want to render a sense of something that history books will not capture and future generations may not understand: namely, the profound and benevolent impact of Murray Rothbard's charisma on young scholars. Although reprints of his work will display the stunning breadth of his scholarship, they will give no clue as to the humor that made his listeners literally laugh for hours in after-conference sessions and gatherings at his home. When people finally walked away from Murray — reluctant to leave a world in which ideas were so much fun — they scattered to libraries and typewriters to research and write up the articles he had inspired. Murray Rothbard believed that ideas mattered. He infused you with that belief. I still hear his voice — admittedly a bit squawky — insisting that a certain insight was "key! it's key to the issue!," and admonishing me to write it up.

Murray had a habit of sitting with his right arm draped over his head, the elbow resting about five inches above ear level. I remember walking into a room where Murray was holding court for three young men who sat attentively before him, lined up on the couch. Each one had his right arm draped over his head. Not one realized they were mimicking him. A whole generation of libertarian theorists wanted to be Murray Rothbard. We adopted his slang terms, his gestures, his eccentricities … hopefully some of his intellectual magic has rubbed off as well.

I had the distinct privilege of being the first person outside the Riggenbach household to hear this recording. All the praise of Garet Garrett's novels had failed to convince me to read any of them. Listening to the audiobook was something I did for work, to check for errors before we went into production. I didn't even take up the task with any pleasure, as there was a very narrow window for quality review and it meant that I had to spend my weekend doing something other than R&R.

I thought I'd at least get some yard work done while I listened, so the first chapters are etched into my memory with visions of my own manual labor as the book opens with crowds of unemployed workers, organizing to march on Washington.

My first reaction was skeptical. Riggenbach's is a great voice for nonfiction. He is clear, easy on the ears, and conveys the importance of his subject; but these virtues in the context of nonfiction don't necessarily carry over to the quirky, emotional, character-driven realm of fiction.

Well, I quickly forgot those reservations as I got swept up in the story. The Mises Institute and its supporters have mostly discussed the economic history of The Driver, which is much more interesting than you might fear, and much more interesting, I found, than is conveyed in all the reviews that emphasize how interesting it is. It is indeed a procapitalism novel, and Garrett manages to communicate that part of the story with passion and fascination, feelings that are contagious for the reader (or listener).

What I was not expecting was the human story behind the economic history. Back to Riggenbach as reader: after a few chapters, it was obvious that Jeff Riggenbach was, in fact, the perfect choice for the unnamed first-person narrator of this novel. The narrator is a journalist, and so is Riggenbach. The narration is wry and reserved, which isn't a bad description of Riggenbach's reading voice. But this reserved style acts as a counterpoint to the often chaotic action of the story. The man telling the story is the calm at the center of the storm of human activity that surrounds him. When we meet the hero of the story — the great railroad capitalist, Henry Galt — we find in him the only other steady presence in the swirl of confusion that was turn-of-the-20th-century Wall Street. I don't mean to suggest similarities between the two characters beyond that central complementary calmness; Galt is irritable, impatient with people, and far from charming in any mundane sense; the narrator is patient and sociable without being quite outgoing. He is also primarily an observer, whereas Galt is The Driver: the driver of the story and the driver, it turns out, of the American economy.

The human side of the story is everything Galt fails to see, mostly concerning his family: an elderly mother, a socialite wife, and two daughters — one attractive but aloof and the other winsome and playful. Galt's family suffers through their waxing and waning fortunes, and continues to suffer the anti-new-money social ostracism of Galt's ultimate success. Galt is immune to society's subtler punishments and he doesn't have the moral imagination to understand why his family isn't happy. Fortunately for him, they love him devotedly.

And love, believe it or not, is the other driver of this book. It turns out to be a love story, or two or three love stories — between the narrator and (1) Henry Galt himself, (2) the Galt family, who come to adopt him slowly and quietly as one of their own, and (3) one of Galt's daughters, for whom his feelings become more than fraternal.

What began as labor quickly turned to pleasure as I listened to this newly available audiobook, and I recommend it highly, whether or not you care about economics or history. It is a very human story. The fact that you might finish it with a greater respect for the social benefits of speculation and entrepreneurship is merely an added bonus.

Update: The Mises Institute has made an audio sample available:

Just how many blatant falsehoods can we find in the publisher's summary of The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War over the American Dollar by H. W. Brands:

A best-selling historian's gripping account of the powerful men who controlled America's financial destiny.

From the first days of the United States, a battle raged over money. On one side were the democrats, who wanted cheap money and feared the concentration of financial interests in the hands of a few. On the other were the capitalists who sought the soundness of a national bank — and the profits that came with it.

In telling this exciting story, H. W. Brands focuses on five "Money Men": Alexander Hamilton, who championed a national bank; Nicholas Biddle, whose run-in with Andrew Jackson led to the bank's demise; Jay Cooke, who financed the Union in the Civil War; Jay Gould, who tried to corner the gold market; and J. P. Morgan, whose position was so commanding that he bailed out the U.S. Treasury.

The Money Men is a riveting narrative, a revealing history of the men who fought over the lifeblood of American commerce and power.

Here's a telling line from the Publisher's Weekly review: "This inherent tension, the author writes, was resolved by the 1913 compromise that created the Federal Reserve System."

So long as "capitalism" is understood to be at odds with free-market money, so long as it is associated with Alexander Hamilton and government-enforced cartels, so long as history continues to be told not just inaccurately but completely backwards, we really have little hope of having our position understood, let alone sympathized with or supported.

What was that maniacal cackle that spooked my neighbors this afternoon?

It was my LOL reaction to this post on blog.Mises:

Today's Dilbert benefited from a little editing. It's funnier (IMHO) in 6 panels rather than 8.