Listening to Mises
Henry Hazlitt said that when he first picked up a phone in the 1940s and heard the voice of the already legendary Austrian economist and liberal political philosopher Ludwig Von Mises on the other end, it was the equivalent of picking up the phone and hearing "This is John Stuart Mill speaking!"
Now you can sort of emulate the fascinating experience of hearing Mises's voice, a rare treat as he died in 1973. The Mises Institute has just posted an mp3 of a broadcast from the "U.S. Steel Concert Hour" from 1962, with Mises answering the not very musical question, ""Are the interests of the American wage earners in conflict with those of their employers, or are the two in agreement?" (By the by, he doesn't rap once. That was more of a Hayek thing.)
For those who prefer reading to listening, a transcript here.
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Somewhere in a small Massachusetts a storm rages in the black sky as a lone man tries to coax Mises dead voice through a telephone…
We need a Mises / Friedman rap.
“I’m Ludwig Von and I’m here to say
They were all a bunch of socialists in my day!”
That’s a good start; every good rap starts with identifying yourself and declaring that you are “here to say” something.
Then you say it. It’s a basic principle of good communication.
I would have written more, but I can’t rhyme worth a damn.
“I’m Chiquita Banana and I’ve come to say
Bananas have to ripen in a certain way”
it was the equivalent of picking up the phone and hearing “This is John Stuart Mill speaking!”
Which is a damned good reason to hang up, if JSM really sounded like LVW. After just four paragraphs from the U.S. Steel Concert Hour, my ears are still ringing.
DURRR HURR HURRR
VANNEMAN IS WITTY AND CHARMING
HURRR HURRR DURRRR
good profits and high real wages go hand in hand.
Fuck me. Why the hell did i not think to say that?
and at the same time, we offered a $15 Human Action, thereby causing a mad frenzy that crashed our (very robust) servers. back in a few minutes… but the Human Actions are certainly gone. We only had 87 of them.