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.
Murray Rothbard on Socialism
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Traffic Court
When I commute to work, I usually ride a bike. It is nice to get a little exercise, and it is also the cheapest way to get there. Also, the town I live in has bike lanes on some of the streets, which makes it a very relaxing way to travel.
Unfortunately, my stress-free commute was interrupted a few weeks ago by a police officer. He shouted at me that, “you have to ride in the bike lane.” To which I responded, “Okay.” He then gave me a ticket for riding outside of the bike lane.
I was annoyed, until I saw what he did next. He proceeded down the street handing out tickets to anyone who rode their bike near him. No bell, have a ticket. Headphones in the ears, have a ticket. Reflector cracked, have a ticket. Clearly he had some sort of directive to ruin the day for as many people as possible.
The penalty for my victimless crime was not too high. It was just low enough that most people would choose to mail in payment rather than taking the day off from work to fight it.
I was still a little angry, though, so I thought about trying to fight the ticket. Continue reading
Dave Smith: Libertas
Libertarian comedian Dave Smith released a comedy special last year that ancaps will love. It is called Libertas, and he hits on a number of hilarious topics, from bumbling politicians to the brainwashed graduates of government schools. As a long time ancap, getting to listen to a one-hour comedy special from a libertarian view point was not only refreshingly honest, but helped rejuvenate my hatred for the state.
You can buy it here:
https://gasdigitalnetwork.com/dsl/
If you are skeptical, here is an interview where he shows off his ancap credentials.
What is Capital?
The term capital is used in different ways in different contexts. In investment, it is how much wealth a person has. In business, it is the sum of your assets, or assets minus liabilities. In some economic contexts, it is any durable good that is used to produce other goods. In certain economic contexts, capital consists of anything that enhances your ability to perform economically useful work. So, anything that makes you productive would be considered capital. Some people prefer other definitions that exclude things like land and labor.
The common theme is that capital is something that people can use to do what they want to do. Continue reading
A Short Clip of Murray Rothbard Teaching
This amusing video gives a taste of Murray Rothbard’s humor as he explains economics and the deleterious effects of government housing programs.
Anarcho-capitalism is not Right Libertarianism
Some like to describe ancaps as alt-right or right-wing libertarians. The reason is that in the American political spectrum, right-wing politicians occasionally use rhetoric that is somewhat close to what an ancap would think and say. For example, the technically-true but misleading “taxes are too high” or an insincere variant of “property owners should get to decide how to use their property”.
With friends like that, who needs enemies? Yet, the American-left’s hysterical call to follow Venezuela into the 9th level of hell is so abhorrent that Continue reading
Review of Trick or Treatment
Trick or Treatment by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst is a book that explains how ineffective medical techniques were until medical professionals adopted a scientific approach to testing treatments, and reviews how various alternative medicines have performed under the scrutiny of high-quality modern clinical trials.
This book will be interesting to ancaps for two reasons. The first is that those of us who were not raised libertarian but had to go through the world-shattering process of learning it as adults tend to be vulnerable to people peddling bad medical advice and bogus treatments. This book will help protect you from charlatans and snake-oil salesmen.
The second reason is that it contains interesting historical facts about how government has impeded progress in the medical field, adding to its already-unfathomable death toll. Continue reading
