Categories
Economics Video Link

Practically a Detective Thriller: Edward Fuller on Keynes, Socialism, and IS-LM

Check out Fuller’s talk here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZYAFaHSsZY

Normally the Mises Institute’s Austrian Economics Research Conference has interesting and novel talks. Usually they’re a bit dry and directed toward an audience that knows Austrian economics quite well.

However, this year, Edward Fuller brought the house down with a lecture on Keynes that is not only fascinating, it is a fantastic example of detailed historical work, hunting down and confirming original and nearly-lost sources, showing evidence to people and getting entirely unexpected responses, and several other staples of a really good mystery or thriller.

It starts off a little slow, mildly threatening to be the same kind of “Keynes was a socialist” talk you’ve probably heard before, but after a few minutes, Fuller dives into some unexpected sources and makes some new points on that front, before going into a detailed investigation of an extremely prominent economic model and its true origins.

It unfolds like a detective story–to the point where I was afraid of putting spoilers into my recommendation for it. If you like economics or mysteries, go give it your time–you won’t regret it.

My video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.

Thumbnail image is a caricature of Keynes by David Low
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keynes_caricature_Low_1934-1.jpg

Pre-order my new novel, releasing April 7th:
Pursuit of the Heliotrope
https://a.co/d/7eWrZeh

Categories
Economics Philosophy Political Video Link

The Conquest of The Conquest of Bread: Chapter 2

Kropotkin’s second chapter is a doozy. He makes a variety of really bad extrapolations, a bunch of incredibly ignorant anti-economic points, and then goes on to demand total expropriation of all goods, both capital and consumption, “private” and personal.

He bases this mostly on floppy definitions of “need” and “live,” as well as the usual incorrigible envy that motivates most actual socialists and communists.

Even worse, the next chapter is supposedly his argument for “anarchic” communism, but considering how he simply papered over the confiscation of all goods with some utopian nonsense, I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for a good argument, because it doesn’t look like one is coming.

Full show notes here.

This video is available on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.

Categories
Economics Philosophy Political Video Link

The Conquest of The Conquest of Bread: Preface and Chapter 1

Welcome to the first episode of my examination of Peter Kropotkin’s book “The Conquest of Bread.”

Episode notes can be found here.

This video can be found on Odysee, YouTube, and BitChute.

Kropotkin is a prominent example of the so-called anarchist strain of communists, which believed that social revolution would lead to the abolishment of private property in the means of production, further leading to a stateless method of organization through communes and labor associations.

The preface and first chapter, however, do not begin by explaining how to enforce the abolishment of private property without a coercive state. Kropotkin instead decides to open his book with a combination of bad economics, misread history, blindness to incentives, rhetorical flourish, and misunderstanding stemming from over-aggregation of the capital structure.

It isn’t a good start, but we’ll see where he goes from here!

Cited articles:
Ludwig von Mises, “The Rise of Capitalism”
https://mises.org/mises-daily/rise-capitalism

Lipton Matthews, “The Problem with Guilds: They’re Monopolistic and Wasteful”
https://mises.org/mises-wire/problem-guilds-theyre-monopolistic-and-wasteful

Robert P. Murphy, “Why Austrians Stress Ordinal Utility”
https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-austrians-stress-ordinal-utility

Murray N. Rothbard, “Ten Great Economic Myths”
https://mises.org/mises-wire/ten-great-economic-myths

Ludwig von Mises, “Planned Chaos”
https://mises.org/library/book/planned-chaos

Friedrich A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society”
https://mises.org/mises-daily/use-knowledge-society

Intro music edited from a piece by Paul Yudin, courtesy Unsplash:
https://pixabay.com/users/paulyudin-27739282/

Categories
Culture Creation Economics Essay Gaming Philosophy Video Link

Mises’s Creative Genius and the Downfall of Triple-A Gaming

While I spend a little time reading making notes on Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread for my next series of videos, I figured I’d make a random fun video about an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while.

You can just watch the video if you want, but I’ll put a text summary below if you prefer that.

Categories
Philosophy Political Video Link

Locke’s Second Treatise, Final Thoughts

Wrapping up my examination and critique of Locke’s Second Treatise, I focus here on where Locke’s framework fails to achieve his stated goals, and why.