Comments on: Is Thomas Woods a Dissenter? A Further Reply, Pt. 4

By: Ariosto

Ariosto — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:51:30 +0000

I thought I recalled that several years ago Mr. Fleming posted an article on the difficulty of a causal "economic science" as described by the Misesians. I've found Mr. Richert's old post on this matter, but if there was one by Mr. Fleming, could the Chronicles staff repost it?

By: Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:33:07 +0000

As a Hellenist I can only tell you what words mean. It matters very little what someone may have read or not read. One begins with the facts of language rather than with a prior conception that one imposes on the facts. You will never make any progress in understanding if you begin with ideology. Leave Friedman out of it and leave out what this or that person may or may not advocate. The "Think and Grow Rich" and free to choose language of so many libertarians is inconsistent with the teachings of Christ. Why any reasonable man would wish to challenge this is something I find difficult to understand. Once again, I must tell you that if you refuse to look at the meanings of words and their history, refuse to study the meaning of texts, you will get nowhere. In claiming, as he does, that "praxeology" represents a reality that transcends any scientific study of human nature and in spending so much time criticizing the moral teachings of historical Christianity, Woods has put himself out side any Christian conversation. Why not simply say you agree that "greed is good" and get on with it? The alternative is to subscribe to the TLG and check every meaning in context of words such as pleonexia and pleonektes. If you don't have enough Greek to do that, then you must take the word of someone who does.

By: oil can harry

oil can harry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:09:43 +0000

To tjf (#34): If pleonexia simply meant the predisposition to want more, then anyone w/ambition would be committing a sin. Every definition of the word I've seen describes it as extreme, insatiable greed leading to dishonesty.

Friedman and Woods have never advocated this, and I'd be surprised if any libertarian did.

By: Daniel Maxwell

Daniel Maxwell — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:43:17 +0000

To the critics of libertarianism, I will grant you all this: most libertarians seem to be an extended period of adolescent rebellion. I believe Rothbard called them 'modals'.

By: Tjf

Tjf — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:27:45 +0000

Pleonexia is a basic word in Greek meaning having more or the predispositio to be having more. Begin with a mistake in words and end in a moral mistake. And yes, misesians actulally laud Mcdonalds for it's good nutritious foods. I have no quarrel with honest libertarians who do not pretend to be. Christians or try to sugarcoat raw capitalism with bogus apologetics.

By: Thomas Storck

Thomas Storck — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:21:54 +0000

To oil can (#30). A long time ago Thomas Aquinas already discussed the false dilemma you bring up, namely, that if you want to proscribe some evils by law, you're bound to proscribe all of them. Not so.

Mr. Marino,

(#32). I feel I'm repeating myself in responding to you, but just to restate it one more time: Sure you can find suspect Catholics like Lord Acton in the 19th century and plenty more in the chaos of the post-Conciliar epoch who espouse one or another form of liberalism - classical in your case. Can you cite authoritative Catholic teaching which supports your position? And surely you're aware the vast majority of informed Catholics in the past would have rejected your position out of hand.

We are not forced to choose between the two forms of liberalism, classical and modern. There is a Catholic tradition which teaches a different and better way. My suspicion is that many Catholics don't understand that tradition because they've never bothered to look into it.

By: John Marino

John Marino — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:02:29 +0000

The Church I grew up and was educated in believed in free will and personal responsibility for one's actions. I think that is the position of most Catholic Libertarians. I don't think you can call such people as Dr. Woods, William Buckley, L. Brent Bozell, Robert Novak, Joseph Sobran, Christopher Manion, and such old European Catholic Liberals as Lord Action and Erik Von Kuelnelt-leddinn outside the Faith. The Church has always been a place of great intellectual debate. Why are we calling people names when we should try to find common agreement? The Leftwing Catholics who reject free will and personal responsibility are the problem

By: Bruce

Bruce — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:24:23 +0000

People can call themselves whatever they want but as far as I can tell libertarians believe in the primacy of the individual. I think this is approximately the same thing as what Mr. Kirkwood says it is.

This is what makes them fundamentally different from us.

By: oil can harry

oil can harry — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:19:09 +0000

Kirkwood @29:

I've never committed adultery or taken drugs but I don't think there should be laws agaist these acts.

Likewise there are millions of teetotalers who don't want to bring back Prohibition even though they don't condone alcohol use.

If you want to be consistent you must advocate that everything immoral should be outlawed: lying, fornication, foul language, refusing to attend church...

By: R. Cort Kirkwood

R. Cort Kirkwood — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:30:01 +0000

@ Oil Can Harry (#28)

No, they do condone it. That is the "I am personally opposed but don't force my beliefs into the law" argument that is so specious it should hardly need addressing at this site.

Libertarians don't merely believe swuch people shouldn't be jailed; they believe laws forbidding those behaviors should be repealed. There's a big difference between the two.

Adultery is still a crime in Virginia, as it should be. It does not follow from that, however, that municipalities should stage SWAT-team police raids into homes to catch adulterers. The libertarians want adultery legalized, and even worse, babies sold on the free market under the guise of adoption.

If you don't believe me on the latter, check out the Mises Web site.

Walter Williams believes people should be able to sell their organs: http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles/98/donate-ro-sell.htm

Undboutedly, his critique of the medical industry getting rich on organ donation is correct; but it doesn't follow that an individual should be able to sell his liver.

But again, as I have repeatedly stated in my comments to Mr. Storck's articles, the cornerstone of libertarianism is "self-ownership."

If you "own yourself," any behavior is permissible. And that's the problem with libertarianism.