Adam Smith

After Blake Farenthold was forced out of Congress earlier in April for being a workplace perv, there was a vague hope Democrats could win his seat in a special election-- very vague. The DCCC gave the seat a thumbs down and refused to engage, especially after it was clear that the leading Democrat, Eric Holguin, is a progressive. The very gerrymandered district (TX-27) stretches along the Gulf from Corpus Christie and Port Aransas up through Victoria and Port Lavaca to Bay City and, incongruously, west through Shiner and Gonzales into the exurbs southeast of Austin.

Notice the “notes” in the title. Part 3 is no textbook. Part 3 is a miniscule “Cliff Notes.” Notice, too, that the title reads “classical” thinking, not “early” thinking. There’s a difference. Since I regard human transactions as the bedrock of any economy and economic system, were I to choose the latter over the former qualifier I would have a lot of ground to cover, namely, that of early humans and their thinking as deduced from artifacts. An impossible task for me.

Is Dr. Jordan Peterson’s worldview coherent? He is certainly eloquent and forceful when refuting many fallacious arguments from opponents, but has he questioned his presuppositions of classical liberalism? I don’t think he has and in this video we look at the good and the bad in Dr. Peterson’s arguments. The second half covers the ideological trek of how we got to the postmodern stage we are in now from the Middle Ages and is available at JaysAnalysis for 4.95 a month or 60.00 per year at the PayPal links.

Man is, as Aristotle said, the social animal, not because he is kind-hearted and community-minded. Homo sapiens is social, kind-hearted, and community-minded precisely because he is sapient: wise enough to understand that his own interests are better served through cooperation and peace than through isolation and predation.

Adam Smith's argument in favor of free trade and against protectionism is just as relevant and persuasive today as it was in 1776. Domestic producers and manufacturers are always better organized than the consumers, and they foster political support for protectionist trade policies that are in direct opposition to the interests and welfare of the great body of the people.

The practical application of liberal principles multiplied population figures and, in the countries committed to the policies of economic freedom, secured even to less capable and less industrious people a standard of living higher than that of the well-to-do of the “good old” days.

International bureaucracies are trying to convince poor nations, which already suffer from bad policy, that they can succeed by imposing additional bad fiscal policy and then magically hope that growth will materialize.

By: Jay Dyer
Once upon a time there was an anarcho libertarian free society called Kokeshitan. These happy individuals began to work together with each other to do certain things individuals couldn’t and eventually created a free social contract, and voluntarily incorporated. Meanwhile, an equally free group of neighboring anarcho libertarians in Larkenville built their own private social contract with a different set of voluntarily agreed upon laws.

Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an œconomy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure that he may speak it the longer.
— Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796)
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
— Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897)

In the United States “capitalism” is often equated with “Americanism,” so that to criticize capitalism is to be unpatriotic.  One suspects that such an attitude has not arisen “naturally” but, rather, has become widespread as a result of promotional efforts by those having a vested interest in the status quo—a consequence of such promotion being that even many of those not having such a vested interest have become staunch supporters of capitalism.