‘Nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action,
but not the execution of any human design.’
Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767)

30 May 2014

The perpetual protest against economic error

Just a single posting for review, ‘The Infernal Resilience of Economic Fallacies’, examining the British government’s 2014 Budget and various commentaries on it, good and less good. Frédéric Bastiat, the French classical economist, once wrote that confronting bad economics was a ‘perpetual protest’ — a point illustrated in the necessity to correct the recurrent errors inherent in Keynesian policies of state intervention and protectionist trade programmes.

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#DMI_Reads Update — Here is a list of current reading, since the last message in February; perhaps it will lead to some interesting discussion:
  • Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Sophisms—Second Series, in The Bastiat Collection, 2nd ed. (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2011) [masterful short essays that demolish mercantilism and protectionism];
  • Christopher Hibbert, The Destruction of Lord Raglan: A Tragedy of the Crimean War, 1854-55 (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1961) [I cannot read Hibbert’s account of Lord Raglan’s misadventures in the Crimea without picturing Sir John Guilgud’s marvellous portrayal in The Charge of the Light Brigade];
  • Henry Hazlitt, The Inflation Crisis, and How to Resolve It (New York: Arlington House, 1978) [Hazlitt’s writings on the illusions of inflationary salvation are an education in themselves];
  • C. Brad Fraught, The Oxford Movement: A Thematic History of the Tractarians and Their Times (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003) [a lovely overview of Newman, Keble, Froude, and Pusey and their impact upon the Victorian Church of England];
  • Friedrich Gentz, The Origin and Principles of the American Revolution, Compared with the Origin and Principles of the French Revolution, John Quincy Adams, trans., Peter Koslowski, ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010 [1800]) [Gentz’s summary of the causes of the American revolt is seminal in understanding the War of Independence]; and
  • Stephen Macedo, The New Right v. The Constitution, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 1987) [a fascinating critique of conservative attempts to read the U.S. Constitution according to ‘democratic’ principles].
I have also been trying to catch up on scholarly articles, listing them under the category of ‘Journal jottings’. Follow-up comments or suggestions for complementary reading are most welcome.