NightFox
Wildling
Yes! The Road To Serfdom was one of the works that opened my eyes to a completely new perspective when I was young and a set me on the path to libertarianism, Human Action was another, I found both works enlightening an infectious, but you called it, Von Mises was a wordy and overly descriptive fellow at times.The Road to Serfdom was one of the first libertarian treatises I read....Found it tremendously insightful and accurate...Even back in the mid-90s, the people Hayek described could be torn straight from the newspapers.Good article Oddball , thanks for sharing! Are you a fan of Hayek? If so , have you read the works of his Co-Austrian School economist Von Mises? Both are among my favorites.I look forward to reading NC's reply to your post, but I like this question about what the internet has become. The internet is an incredibly powerful tool that covers every corner of the globe. I have noticed that wherever I see power, I also see corruption.Good insights Natural Citizen , thought provoking and nothing I can take exception to there. Do you find it ironic that the advent of the Internet, which *could* have been the greatest platform for free expression and the exchange of new ideas and new perspectives is in many ways having the opposite results. In other words, I see it evolving to principally a vehicle for spreading propaganda, feeding confirmation bias and building echo chambers, do you see it that way as well?It is shocking how some of these lefties don't even conceive what objective vetting is. They are posting away in a thread that they do not understand. They don't even know enough to feel ashamed of their ignorance.
Ignorance is quite an obstacle to overcome if one doesn't ever experience any kind of objective reality. Certainly one cannot vet what one observes or hears in any kind of meaningful way if one cannot relate to any kind of objective reality. It's a fundamental fault.
And that's not even considering the fact that so many in the electorate who pass the time by cheerleading for both theoretical sides of the party of one aren't particularly interested in objective reality. Much less vetting it. Everyone loves the circus. The circus is fun. Until it's not. You know?
As I'd mentioned, people tend to just go with the narrative. With whatever they're told is reality. Which, again, is almost always irrelevant to actual reality. But it is convenient. Thinking is hard. Apparently.
Anyway. I have to hit the road. Have to be down in DC in a few hours.
Good topic for discusson, though. If it can be had. Looks like the clown car showed up. And they're piling out. Heh heh.Why the Worst Get on Top - FEE
There are strong reasons for believing that what to us appear the worst features of the existing totalitarian systems are not accidental byproducts, but phenomena which totalitarianism is certain sooner or later to produce.fee.org
Shortly afterward, I read a lot of Hayek's and von Mises' economic writings....Though I found Human Action to be the nonfiction version of Atlas Shrugged....Far too needlessly wordy and into the weeds.....The one thing that has always stuck with me learned from the Austrian school, is that economics is a far easier to understand science than the "economists" make it out to be.
Atlas Shrugged offered a lot of insights as well, however I will have to say that Rands writing style made it a slough to get to her points at times, still very good though.
.. and then came Rothbard, don’t even get me started.
The one EXCELLENT book that I think reinforces your point that “economics is a far easier to understand science than economists make it out to be” would IMHO be :
Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, makes the science very clear and easy to understand, of course he wasn’t an economist, he was a journalist.
Good post oddball, makes me want to run out and read Hayek again.