Julian L. Simon was an economist who showed how capitalism and population growth have been hugely beneficial for the standard of living of people all over the world. His book The Ultimate Resource is highly recommended for all anarcho-capitalists. For those who have not read it and would like to hear the main ideas from the man himself, check out the following video interview:
For a more detailed introduction see:
Murray Rothbard gives a witty discussion of the history of socialism, and how it displaced the positive movement of classical liberalism in the 18th century.
This amusing video gives a taste of Murray Rothbard’s humor as he explains economics and the deleterious effects of government housing programs.
In this video from 1981, David D. Friedman lists some unresolved problems with libertarianism and also tells some funny stories about Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and Ayn Rand. In general, he thinks that libertarians are too confident in their ability to answer all real world problems given the current state of libertarian ethical theory. For anyone interested in the fundamentals of libertarianism, this video will be a lot of fun.
TL;DW: First, he is concerned that there is no pre-defined rule for quantifying the kind and quantity of punishment and restitution that is appropriate in response to crimes. Continue reading
A 12 minute presentation on praxeology and ethics at the 2015 Austrian Economics Research Conference based on this paper.
