Participants included Walter Block, Richard Ebeling, Stephan Kinsella, Steve Howritz, Peter Boettke, Roger Garrison and others. At times the exchanges really rock. I am going to try and get permission from various members of The List to publish their emails and hope to publish them in a series, over coming weeks.
I have already received permission from Walter Block to publish the emails he contributed to exchange. In a separate email, he explained to me what got the back and forth started:
To sum it all up, I wrote that those responsible for the min wage ought to be considered criminals, and dealt with accordingly. Horwitz said that with friends of libertarians like me, we're in trouble. I, and Stephan asked him to explain. He refused.But the exchange goes well beyond a discussion of the criminality of those responsible for the minimum wage and touches on the mainstream view of Austrian economics, the best strategy to advance Austrian economics, Walter Block's university days etc.
There is some meaty stuff here, I hope most of the participants allow me to post their emails.
Horwitz the emoting statist provides no explanation for his opinion? Shocker.
ReplyDeleteNothing to see here, keep moving.
ReplyDeleteIf you are against the minimum wage, you ought to also be against other statist price controls on people like occupational licensing, and state support of university degree programs. Broadening the discussion to include rich people will mute the argument that you are just picking on the poor and enhance the underlying point that price controls are counterproductive whether they controlling the price of wheat or the hourly fee of a lawyer.
ReplyDeleteThe Austrian School like those at the Mises Institute ARE against all of those thing you mentioned. An Austriam would say that occupational licensing is a way for people already in the business to protect themselves and their buddies from competition. They'd also say that federal support has cause the cost of college to skyrocket because of the easy money policies.
DeleteThis is certainly not a case of people picking on the poor. The mainstream media just tries to present it that way because they know the booboisie isn't going to take the time to listen to Austrians about the other issues.
What happens if one of them does not want the list to be published?
ReplyDeleteKinsella certainly can't object to you publishing his, right.
ReplyDelete"To sum it all up, I wrote that those responsible for the min wage ought to be considered criminals, and dealt with accordingly. Horwitz said that with friends of libertarians like me, we're in trouble. I, and Stephan asked him to explain. He refused."
ReplyDeleteWell, of course he did. If he'd have to explain himself, he'd have to explain how he doesn't give a shit about principles and logical conclusions. Because if state force against peaceful people, and violation of private property rights should not be considered "criminal" according to Horwitz, what basis would he have left to be considered a libertarian at all? Precisely zero.
He is no bleeding heart libertarian; he's a suck-up fake without a spine.