With respect to Adam Smith et al, and the triumph of the price system over central planning, I can offer only one thought that hasn't already been shared before a thousand times: that is, what else must the market provide or accomplish that isn't already so?
What would economic freedom have to achieve to convince the remaining holdouts? What would it have to accomplish that has not already been accomplished? What would it have to explain that already hasn't been explained?
Your thoughts shared regarding Caesarism, President Trump, & America reminded me of something I wrote back during the beginnings of the aftermath of the October 7th massacre: that is, if a collection of Canadians join together in the streets to shout, "Death to Jews", "Back to Europe", and "From the River to the Sea....", and our politicians reply only with "That is not who we are as Canadians", and if 51 percent of Canadians agree with the protesters, is that not, in fact, exact proof of precisely what & who we are?
I understand your point about how words may, over time, have changed meanings. I’m a gay man in my late 70’s and your essay reminded me of a marvelous cartoon I saw, I think in the early 80’s. It might have been in the New Yorker. Two well dressed matrons are in a store shopping, one has turned to speak the other and says “When you say ‘gay’ do you mean happy or that other business?”
I have to say though, as I recollect my early days, being called gay was preferable to the other words sometimes used.
Today I learned that the Trump coin isn’t entirely unprecedented—the coin for the sesquicentennial had both Washington and Coolidge on it.
It was pretty modest, though. As for Trump:
“I motion to approve this as presented, and with the strong encouragement that you make it as large as possible, all the way to three inches in diameter,” the commission’s vice chair, James McCrery, said moments before the design was approved.
August, 1973. I was visiting with a friend who I hadn't seen much since the end of the previous school year. His mother asked me "Did you have a gay summer?". It was all our teenage selves could do to keep our snickering to ourselves. The mom knew me well enough not to be implying anything by the question. She was merely using a good old-fashioned word in its traditional sense.
"There are debates about these books, of course. Fierce ones. But aren’t they, essentially, true? I mean, in an almost scientific sense?"
Had you asked Cass Sunstein and Noah Smith a decade ago, they'd find plenty to quibble with, insisting that "almost" in "almost scientific" has got to do a lot of heavy lifting! Perhaps because those are the kinds of quibbles it's interesting to have when illiberal threats diminish, when the goods of general economic freedom and impartial rule of law seem ascendant, even if it's hard to resist tinkering around the edges. These days, though? Rather than saying they've changed their own tune, say they've come to better appreciate their disagreements as counterpoint rather than mere clashing, as I have my tune with theirs.
From Noah Smith:
"But I feel like I owe libertarians an apology, for severely underrating their ideology. I was so focused on its theoretical flaws that I ignored its political importance. I concentrated only on the marginal benefits that might be achieved by building on our economic system’s libertarian foundation, ignoring the inframarginal losses that would happen were that foundation to crumble. I had only a hazy, poor understanding of the historical context in which libertarianism emerged, and of the limitations of libertarianism’s most prominent critics."
"Hayek and the Mont Pelerins (and Posner and Epstein) seemed to be fighting old battles, and in important ways to be wrong. With respect to authoritarianism and tyranny, and the power of the state, of course they were right; but still, those battles seemed old.
"But those battles never were old. In important ways, Hayek and the Mont Pelerins (and Posner and Epstein, and Becker and Stigler) were right. Liberalism is a big tent. It’s much more than good to see them under it. It’s an honor to be there with them."
With respect to Adam Smith et al, and the triumph of the price system over central planning, I can offer only one thought that hasn't already been shared before a thousand times: that is, what else must the market provide or accomplish that isn't already so?
What would economic freedom have to achieve to convince the remaining holdouts? What would it have to accomplish that has not already been accomplished? What would it have to explain that already hasn't been explained?
Your thoughts shared regarding Caesarism, President Trump, & America reminded me of something I wrote back during the beginnings of the aftermath of the October 7th massacre: that is, if a collection of Canadians join together in the streets to shout, "Death to Jews", "Back to Europe", and "From the River to the Sea....", and our politicians reply only with "That is not who we are as Canadians", and if 51 percent of Canadians agree with the protesters, is that not, in fact, exact proof of precisely what & who we are?
I understand your point about how words may, over time, have changed meanings. I’m a gay man in my late 70’s and your essay reminded me of a marvelous cartoon I saw, I think in the early 80’s. It might have been in the New Yorker. Two well dressed matrons are in a store shopping, one has turned to speak the other and says “When you say ‘gay’ do you mean happy or that other business?”
I have to say though, as I recollect my early days, being called gay was preferable to the other words sometimes used.
Today I learned that the Trump coin isn’t entirely unprecedented—the coin for the sesquicentennial had both Washington and Coolidge on it.
It was pretty modest, though. As for Trump:
“I motion to approve this as presented, and with the strong encouragement that you make it as large as possible, all the way to three inches in diameter,” the commission’s vice chair, James McCrery, said moments before the design was approved.
Almost makes one nostalgic for Jimmy Carter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Sesquicentennial_coinage
August, 1973. I was visiting with a friend who I hadn't seen much since the end of the previous school year. His mother asked me "Did you have a gay summer?". It was all our teenage selves could do to keep our snickering to ourselves. The mom knew me well enough not to be implying anything by the question. She was merely using a good old-fashioned word in its traditional sense.
"There are debates about these books, of course. Fierce ones. But aren’t they, essentially, true? I mean, in an almost scientific sense?"
Had you asked Cass Sunstein and Noah Smith a decade ago, they'd find plenty to quibble with, insisting that "almost" in "almost scientific" has got to do a lot of heavy lifting! Perhaps because those are the kinds of quibbles it's interesting to have when illiberal threats diminish, when the goods of general economic freedom and impartial rule of law seem ascendant, even if it's hard to resist tinkering around the edges. These days, though? Rather than saying they've changed their own tune, say they've come to better appreciate their disagreements as counterpoint rather than mere clashing, as I have my tune with theirs.
From Noah Smith:
"But I feel like I owe libertarians an apology, for severely underrating their ideology. I was so focused on its theoretical flaws that I ignored its political importance. I concentrated only on the marginal benefits that might be achieved by building on our economic system’s libertarian foundation, ignoring the inframarginal losses that would happen were that foundation to crumble. I had only a hazy, poor understanding of the historical context in which libertarianism emerged, and of the limitations of libertarianism’s most prominent critics."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/i-owe-the-libertarians-an-apology
From Cass Sunstein:
"Hayek and the Mont Pelerins (and Posner and Epstein) seemed to be fighting old battles, and in important ways to be wrong. With respect to authoritarianism and tyranny, and the power of the state, of course they were right; but still, those battles seemed old.
"But those battles never were old. In important ways, Hayek and the Mont Pelerins (and Posner and Epstein, and Becker and Stigler) were right. Liberalism is a big tent. It’s much more than good to see them under it. It’s an honor to be there with them."
https://casssunstein.substack.com/p/on-classical-liberalism
From ABC News Australia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyqeCj4mijY