There was a nice little article by the great Robert P. Murphy on mises.org the other day, so I decided to do a reading of it. The reading is licensed under a Creative Commons License, per the requirements of the license.
The marginal revolution in economics was a major step forward in the late 1800s that helped solve some serious problems in the field, especially around the concept of value. Dr. Murphy’s article is a concise explanation of what it means to look at an economic problem “on the margins,” so go have a listen!
Also available on Odysee at https://odysee.com/@MarginalNonHermit:3/reading-what-does-marginality-mean:3
Categories
Now Appearing on Odysee!
I decided to do a little more work on New Tech, so I started a channel on Odysee and am uploading some of my more evergreen content from the past, and once that channel catches up, I’ll start uploading new stuff there, too.
The new channel can be found at
https://odysee.com/@MarginalNonHermit:3
If you like Odysee better than BitChute (and I can see reasons why you might), come find me there!
It always bugs me when people misdiagnose the cause of a lot of bad behavior by corporations, big ones especially. A lot of heat gets thrown at the corporations, and much is wasted burning the branches of this problem and ignoring the root, that is, the state.
Certainly, corporations can and will try to get away with a lot. But they have very little power to actually push people around before the state gets involved. And the state loves to get involved, because working with corporations gives them an excuse to use their power and find reasons to demand more!
Categories
Support the LP Mises Caucus!
The Libertarian Party has a lot of people in it who value signaling their social virtue better than actual liberty. The LP Mises Caucus is dedicated to bringing a strong love of liberty to the forefront.
They’re great, and they just published a really good promotional video that got me really inspired.
You can find the video at https://www.facebook.com/GoulashFilms/videos/538229143853502/
-or-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFPGjXBFA1Y
(you don’t need to be logged in to watch them).
I also made short video talking about them.
The concept of civil libertarianism is sometimes useful, but it has some serious logical flaws–well, perhaps flaws is too strong a word–let’s say issues. In reality, the notion of civil libertarianism is often used to push out liberties from the argument because the speaker doesn’t like those particular liberties.
In my opinion, a person who respects only a subset of liberties is usually not acting based on principle, but on aesthetics or personal preference.
Below is a short video where I discuss.
Update: Now also available on YouTube.
The recent breaking of the peace deal with the Afghan government and the Taliban is worse than most people are thinking, or at least worse than they’re saying. Here’s a short video where I think out loud about why.
I’ve been hearing a lot of what I would charitably term as concern trolls using late-stage capitalism as a rationale why so many firms today are becoming bad actors. No, it’s not because the Material Productive Forces are inevitably pushing us toward socialism. It’s not because voluntary trade has some kind of internal contradiction that will break upon itself and herald the next stage in social evolution.
It’s the state. The state’s velvet-covered iron fingerprints can be found practically everywhere these bad actors appear. And the idea of late-stage capitalism is just bad economics.
Enjoy.
Update: Video now also available on YouTube.
Categories
The Bigotry of the Literati
This showed up in the feed on Mises.org a few days ago and, even though it was published in the 1950s, it’s still extremely valid today. The video below is a short reading of a section of Mises’s book The Anti-capitalistic Mentality and it’s a good one. Enjoy!
The whole book is available for free from the Mises Institute at https://mises.org/library/anti-capitalistic-mentality. They also have a print version, if that’s more your style. All of the print books I’ve gotten from Mises have been very good quality, especially hardcovers.
Update: Video now also available on YouTube.
Categories
Saving Great Books and Media
I was listening to an episode of the Tom Woods show a few days ago and they said something that got me thinking about dealing with the rising tide of censorship going forward. Basically, I’m worried that the forces of political correctness and hecklers’ vetoes may be making more progress than we believe.
Therefore, I propose that people interested in great works, be they books or other media, start thinking seriously about preserving these works against those who would destroy them in order to eliminate inconvenient thoughts and ideas.
Check out the video!
Update: Video now also available on YouTube.
It’s very common these days for people defending labor unions and their tactics to act as if labor unions are a free-market phenomenon in the United States. In fact, labor unions have massive state privileges and their supporters won’t tell you about them. They ignore these privileges and act as if they are merely voluntary organizations.
As you might expect, even a cursory examination of labor law in the United States shows this narrative is completely false. The privileges and special treatments that labor unions receive from the state are very significant, and any economist worth his or her salt will tell you so.
I decided to make a video about some of these privileges and give some details and additional sources for anyone interested in learning more.
Enjoy!
Links for more info:
Forgotten Facts of American Labor History, by Tom Woods
https://mises.org/library/forgotten-facts-american-labor-history
Paper by Morgan O. Reynolds in J. Libertarian Studies
https://cdn.mises.org/6_3_3_0.pdf
Episode 1019 of the Tom Woods Show:
https://www.tomwoods.com/1019
Update: This video is now also available on YouTube.