Goldbug Variations

A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II, a posthumous collection of Murray N. Rothbard essays published by Ludwig Von Mises Institute, features reprints of four hard-to-find essays and one entirely new one. Topics range from Andy Jackson's destruction of the Second Bank of the U.S. to the enforced move to paper currencies, with an emphasis on Gresham's law. Ryan McMaken reviews the book at LewRockwell.com.

Comments

[PLC]

Perhaps a better suggestion would be to read a basic economics textbook. With a little knowledge, ridiculous "fiat money" conspiracy theories become less attractive.

[Mr. Stinker]

The only decent contnet on Lew's site since the war began, which apparently disconnected his brain. I love contrarianism, but I always tend to smell a whiff of groupthink on that site. I suppose it is harmless, but when Lew rants about NRO trying to "purge" him it makes him look like a crackpot.

NRO at least has some variety of opinions, Lew's site is just the Anti-War Rothbardian party line (Liconln is evil, Confederate South was libertopia, etc) repeated over and over. He looks even more silly when he approvingly links to blatent anti-liberarians such as Chomsky, Vidal, Taki and Ted Rall. At least they don't bash Reason like they used to.

[Mr. Stinker]

More on he Rothbardian party line and groupthink on Lewrockwell -- from Bryan Caplan, anarcho-captialist godfather but apparently not Rothbardian-idiotarian enough for Lew:

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/autobio.htm

"A Note to the Reader: This essay was originally solicited by Walter Block for his forthcoming volume of libertarian autobiographies.? Much to my surprise, however, he was only willing to accept it for publication if I heavily edited the content, particularly the sections critical of Murray Rothbard and Austrian economics.? His main argument was that if it accepted my essay unchanged, he would have to allow other contributors to reply to my controversial views.? I remain puzzled by this idea.? It seems to me that the only way to "reply" to an autobiography would be to accuse the author of misrepresenting the story of his life.? Unfortunately, Walter and I were unable to reach a mutually acceptable compromise, so I have decided to run the unedited, uncut, no-holds-barred version here on my webpage.? Enjoy. - B.C."

[Anonymous]

Mr Stinker
"NRO at least has some variety of opinions" ...
Examples, please ?
I'll admit in advannce that i'm not much of an NRO reader, but the content there seems predictably uniform.

[Tony Blair]

Hit & Run is absolutely ridiculous--just another outlet for semiliterate Freepers to see themselves "published." Where is all this diversity of opinion on NRO? Read The Corner for a day or two. And isn't Rockwell's willingness to link Vidal, Chomsky, et al., actually the ecumenism you allegedly crave?

[Anonymous]

That's right. Lew has allows conspiracy freaks of all stripes on his site.

[Kevin Carson]

I liked Free Republic until the war. But the stuff they opposed from Auntie Jen and Slick Willie, apparently, are just fine when a Republican is doing it. A draft-dodging, coke-snorting booze hound with a jackbooted attorney general is A-OK, so long as he comes from one of the "red states," wraps himself in the Flag, and uses the magical incantation of National Security.

Tony Blair:

I nominate you for most unfortunate nom de net.

[Mr. Stinker]

TB: So what? They like Bush, so do a lot people. At least they give some justification why they like him, instead of just assuming that Bush is evil incarnate. Unlike Lew Rockwell's "Attack of the Clones" site they also discuss topics such as popular culture, science, art, etc.

Ahh, maybe I am just bitter as I used to be a Rothbardian clone myself. Is this how ex-Objectivists feel when they see how stupid most Randians are?

[Anonymous]

Do you ever even glance at LRC? I mean, rip it to shreds if you like, but LOOK at it first. It has much more cultural content than NRO.

[Mr. Stinker]

I read it all the time. Same shit, different days. And it USED to have relevent cultural content, now it just Bush-bashing nonsense. Reason is by far more interesting than NRO, but NRO is still more interesting than LRC, depite what Lew's dumb little chart says.

[Rick Barton]

Thank You Tim for bringing the new Rothbard volume to our attention and thank you to Mr. Stinker, as well, for making us aware of the Caplan piece. Murray Rothbard's rigorous expositions of the Austrian School of economics as in his "Man Economy and State, his critiques of government intervention like "Power and Market" his history of the United States, "Conceived in Liberty" his economic history : "Americas Great Depression" and his libertarian manifesto: "For a New Liberty" bare witness to his reputation as one of the strongest social thinkers of our time. I remember
him once, out numbered, debating Leftist Profs. and students and how easily he dispatched them with his powerful arguments but what really impressed me about that episode on his visit to the university I attended was how he would sometimes actually reenforce their critiques of his positions. One got the impression that the truth was very important to Murray.

PLC wrote:
"ridiculous "fiat money" conspiracy theories become less attractive."

The creation of fiat money is conspiratorial by its nature. Some of the conspiracies to do so are more convoluted then others. Murray brings to bare on his subject, the powerful tools of the question: "Who benefits?" and also examination of self interest. The assumption that collusion never exists is what is ridiculous.

Lew Rockwell has some faults; He once seemed to condone police brutality, but there's still a lot of good stuff on his site. I started losing respect for national review awhile ago. I remember in the issue where they went after the libertarians and Rothbard was a central target. Before that, it was the Birchers. But now with the "Unpatriotic Conservatives" screed they've hit new lows with David Frum actually incorporating lies into his attacks. But in fairness, I assume they probably still run an occasional good piece...although I don't usually check them out anymore.

"...when he approvingly links to blatent anti-liberarians such as Chomsky, Vidal, Taki and Ted Rall."

I used to be of the opinion that Chomsky didn't understand freedom. Now I've come to the opinion that he's incapable of understanding freedom as I read him calling Laissez Faire a "hateful situation." But he does make some valid critiques of government foreign policy...So why not cite those? Truth is where you find it! Is it fair to call Taki blatantly anti-Libertarian?

[Anonymous]

@Kevin Carson
Of course they are ok with it they don't want to be on the bad side of the Black Pope.

"It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country, the United States of America, are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies of civil and religious liberty. They have instigated most of the wars of Europe." - General Lafayette

[Mr. Stinker]

My issue isn't with Rothbard's philosopy/theories, as I am a fan of his written work. My issue was with his politics (he was intelletually dishonest and a Leninist - may he RIP), and now with Rothbardians. Such creatures are victims of groupthink and this was recently illustrated by commentary surrounding the recent War.

NRO tends to bash libertarians, which is annoying. But at least they are entertaining and attack issues from a variety of viewpoints (i.e. they are not devoted to a single viewpoint/partyline, while Lew's site is just the Rothbardaian Vanguard's mouthpiece). For the last two years Lew's site has stunk with bitternessm, paranoia and predictable (therefor uninteresting) viewpoints.

(FYI - I think Reason and TechCentralStation are better sites than NRO.)

[Anonymous]

http://economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1730317

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1051389608162&p=1012571727123

[TB]

Mr. Stinker, is this the "interesting" "variety" you love so much on NRO?

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen050203.asp

Bush is great. Bush is wonderful. Bush is God. Let's give Bush a hummer. Praise Bush.

Yeah, fascinating stuff.

[TB]

Make sure you check out the rest of the commentary on Bush's amazingincredibleunprecedentedlybrilliant speech at NRO. Ah, diversity!

[Benton Janet]

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DATE: 01/25/2004 11:07:43
Anyone can learn from pain.