It’s been a long while since I toured the Heart Of Dixie, I’m sorry to hear that has happened to the catfish enterprise. I hope the famers hang in there rather than sell to developers. I’d rather see golf courses, or perhaps vinyards. I have drank some Alabama wines though, hoo eee!

And of course they can plant pine or poplar, trees only need to be harvested every 15 years.

The key error of Keynsian inflationism is, on Mises’ own view, that inflationism inserts non-value into the calculus of value-exchange.

The Austrian position on individualized valuation is liberal only insofar as it doesn’t answer the question, ‘choose what?’; strictly speaking the marginal theory of value is indifferent to scientific judgments on ‘what exactly the subjective utility of some exchangeable is’. The relevant domain of the Christianized Aristotelian includes both nature and supernature; patristic polemics took nature-regarding subjective-utility valuations as evident and dialectically given, with only supernature needing to be justified against pagan attacks.

But what is really subjectively useful? Austrian-type valuations that are not nature-regarding don’t (except incidentally) even maximize mutual benefit within nature; so mutual benefit maximization in exchange is properly possible only when the individual valuators actually pay attention to human physis. The general Austrian position is that markets are in principle better valuators than anyone else, because of the nature of valuation; the metaphysical realist at this point will have to insist that the physical determinacy of bodies has something to do the real subjective utility of anything.

Aristotle, the first serious theoretical economist (whose reputation among twentieth-century economic theorists was most damagingly assaulted by Schumpeter, by the way), observed that exchanges not responsive to (relative) need (khreia) take money, the medium of exchange, as a per-se object — as something sought for its own sake, rather than as something sought for the sake of things an individual human being needs (with relevant subject-proper variation). This ‘denaturing’ of money, which is really a confusion of the material and formal aspects of exchange, introduces theoretical limitlessness to the non-khreia-type exchanger’s intention, and this kind of limitlessness (which as such is essentially not nature-regarding) is really just the same thing as greed (pleonexia). So for Aristotle valuing things not on nature-determined subjective utility misunderstands money and harms moral character. (A Christian Aristotelian might add that the per-se valuation of money is thoroughly gnostic.)

Schumpeter’s criticism was directed mostly against this kind of reasoning: that Aristotle here is a moral philosopher, not an economist. Fine — the relevant passages appear in Aristotle’s ethical works anyway. But I think it would be silly to dispute that the whole motivation for the study of economics as a *practical* science is ‘to maximize benefit in exchange’, i.e., to maximize economic value, and if Aristotle is right about physis and khreia (and if you think he’s not, then you need to engage him philosophically, as Schumpeter noted), then non-nature-regarding exchanges are not mutual benefit maximizers at all.

Dr. Klein,

One of the criteria for making a strong inductive argument — such as a prediction — is taking into account all the relevant factors.

In predicting what the economy would look like sans big-government tendrils, you might consider the myriad ramifications of US taxpayers keeping ~ $600 billion a year, vice injecting that sum into a global military-network.

Another possibility — implausible, I know, but worth considering for the sake of argument — is that of a large percentage of parents, elders, & influential thinkers in America’s communities suddenly deciding to take their obligations seriously for a change, by throwing their moral authority and decision-making power behind local businesses and concerns.

Short of one of the psychic pre-cogs from the sci-fi film *Minority Report*, I can’t think of anybody who could reasonably claim to know, with certainty, what the American economy would look like if our socialism evaporated overnight — regardless of how much statistics or US Agricultural Census reports we have at our disposal.

I appreciate Mr. Gordon’s temperate response to my admittedly blunt commentary.

It is of course possible that I interpreted Mr. Gordon’s essay as saying something more or other than what he actually had in mind; but then that is how language works. I certainly do not subscribe to the current trend in literary theory, that a piece of text can be twisted into whatever a fashionably-insane deconstructionist wants it to mean. But I do firmly believe that the primary burden lies on the wordsmith to exhibit as much clarity as possible.

In light of this I was of the opinion (which I still hold) that Mr. Gordon’s piece would leave an unfortunate and grossly inaccurate impression on those unfamiliar with Berry’s work, should they accept Mr. Gordon’s article at face value without bothering to make further inquiry.

My conviction is that one impression a disinterested reader would draw from Mr. Gordon’s article is: Berry’s intellectual merit, though great, is confined to technical, specialized fields such as literary criticism and the conduct of agriculture… unless you are specifically interested in analyzing the formal symbolism of Dante’s Inferno, or want to bone up on the best way to go about raising sheep, then Berry’s work is not for you.

Again, I will concede that this may not have been Mr. Gordon’s intention, but I stand by my assertion that that is pretty much what came out. I will not beat a dead horse by trying to demonstrate my assertion, as my point here is to emphasize to Mr. Gordon why I felt obligated to respond as forcefully as I did. Not because I hold a deep animus against either himself or libertarians in general, but because the federally-colonized Kentucky Commonwealth is in rough shape and I cannot afford the luxury of being diplomatic when it comes to one of our greatest living thinkers being marginalized, unintentionally or no.

It might be worth adding that had Mr. Gordon’s article been confined to critiquing the “crunchy-cons”, it would have been no skin off my teeth and I would not have responded at all. As I wrote earlier, while Dreher may have achieved some measure of good in drawing popular attention to the dangers of materialistic consumerism, I do not identify with nor spend much thought upon the “crunchy-con” movement.

On a purely positive note — while my very first, initial reaction to Mr. Gordon’s article was considerably angrier than what actually came out in my response, calmer reflection brought me back once again to what I consider the silver-lining of living in a civilization (I use the term loosely) dominated intellectually (even more loosely) by characters such as Boot, Christopher Hitchens, Madeleine Albright, etc: It makes it that much easier to find the good in anybody, anybody at all, who is not a bloodthirstily malevolent idiot. (Always look on the bright side, is my motto.)

This is quite aside from any deference I might feel toward a friend of the good Dr. Fleming, in whose judgment of character I would put considerable trust.

For example, I can honestly say, independently, that if even a small fraction of American Catholics possessed even a small fraction of Mr. Gordon’s knowledge and seriousness vis-a-vis Just War doctrine, then (to make an understatement) the world would be a vastly improved place.

Heh-heh: “St. Thomas, almost as important an authority as Fagothey, long ago noted…” A wicked sense of humor, indeed.

Elected government on this continent is a failure. Religion aside, I think the ancient Cherokees had it right: a permanent council of elders in each town that ruled by influence (rather than coercion). Of course, that has something to do with culture, identity, and respect…..

Catfish farmers in Alabama are rapidly going the way of small town independent druggists and grocers in the era of Wal Mart. They need corn to feed the fish, the current price of which busts their bottom line through the floor thanks to Big Ethanol. Then again, maybe catfish isn’t something to be farmed to begin with; but it’s sure a nice eating fish especially when thin cut and expertly fried as at Middendorf’s in Pass Manchac, Louisiana. (Mark Twain thought it the best) It’s even better when eaten by the young without lead, cadmium and mercury in dangerous quantities the wild appaloosas and channel cats are laced with due to the state of our rivers in the ear of universal electricity and industrial progress.

@ Josh Cooney: I second Robert’s comments on your honesty. Also, I think Mr. Berry ’s family has deep roots in the Buffalo Trace area of Northern Kentucky where Port Royal is located. He didn’t grow up in “America’s spoil bank” as did Harry Caudill who spoke up for those ravaged Harlan County communities in “My LAnd is Dying” and “Night Comes to the Cumberlands.” At any rate, Mr. Berry probably could sense, and perhaps see after a rainy spring, the “externalities”, to get Blockian, of modern industrial capitalism Mountain people knew up close and personal from diaper to shroud.