Non-morons - an idle ramble.

[Garth Zietsman]

I was just thinking that although I don't think von Mises' mal-investment theory is correct I in no way regard him as even remotely foolish.  What's more, there are few (even libertarians) who were as committed to liberty as him.  So Mises himself is very cool in my eyes.  Interestingly both he and Popper were decidedly arrogant thinkers.  Mises once told none other than Ayn Rand to her face that she was 'a stupid Jewish girl who didn't understand what she was talking about' and Popper has been called "the authoritarian liberal" because of the way he lay down the intellectual law about liberty.  Other libertarian luminaries - like Hayek, Friedman and Nozick - have also been, shall we say, 'very confident in their opinions'.  Rothbard was infamous for his intellectual arrogance which makes his case against Keynes' elitism a bit ironic.

Bertrand Russell - who knew just about every major intellect across every discipline and virtually every major country - regarded Keynes as easily to brightest of them all.  Both Hayek and Friedman continued to have enormous regard for Keynes' intellect and his ability as an economist, and both were clear that he was broadly speaking a classical liberal - although both disagreed with his General Theory.  It is nevertheless popular for libertarians to dismiss his thinking as obviously wrong and declare him an evil character.  Keynes likewise respected Hayek but thought Marx was a quite a lightweight.

I note that Sowell was once a Marxist and he admitted to being one all through his student years under Friedman.  Sowell is clearly a genius now but was he a moron as a student?  I find it interesting that what turned him around was not any intellectual argument but his experience working in government when it became clear to him that government employees had no interest in whether what they were doing improved lives.

Popper too was once a communist.  His conversion was also not intellectual.  He became disillusioned because of the behavior of communists during a protest, specifically their complete lack of concern for the lives of individual workers. 

Friedman was once an avowed Keynesian.  Was he a fool then?  I don't think so.  What about Nozick, who to some extent recanted on Anarchy, State and Utopia?  Did he perhaps become senile?  I don't know but it seems that moron or genius status has little to do with the actual content of one's beliefs.

On elitism (not necessarily the same as unconstrained vision) - I think there probably are some people who could radically improve our lot through social engineering, just like there are people who could better serve justice by breaking the letter and spirit of the law and ignoring procedure e.g. the Alan Shore character in Boston Legal.  I think Keynes (though not Keynesians) would have, and that Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore did, fit the bill (just my admittedly faulty opinion).  The problem is that they form a such a tiny fraction of those who think they are part of that elite that they would be swamped by the Lenins, Hitlers, Maos etc.  It would be disastrous to make it a rule to hand over power to elitists.  In other words the institution of royalty is still lousy idea.even though great Solomon like kings have existed.  I wish I could say that democracy is a great way to weed out the bad and yet give the best a chance but sadly I don't believe I can.

[Trevor Watkins]

What an eloquent and restrained ramble - well done Garth. Interesting that it has had so little response.  I could find nothing to dispute, so will simply add some of my own thoughts. 

I dislike certainty. I think only fools are truly certain of anything. I wrote a short story to that effect available here - http://sketchesbyboz37.blogspot.com/2008/05/celestial-gardener-short-story.html.

Having said that, I do believe that some things are less uncertain than others, and the challenge in this life is to discover those things. Maths is a good place to start, physics does well (having discovered the uncertainty principle), but disciplines involving humans like economics and medicine might just as well flip coins.

Nevertheless, even in the human realm, I am reasonably sure that liberty is better than captivity, joy better than sorrow, love better than hate, reason better than prejudice. The scarcity of these conditions makes one wonder why others don't come to the same conclusion, though. Probably because powerful is better than powerless.

This forum is about exploring the uncertain, rather than merely regurgitating a select few certainties. Please continue to question our certainties, Garth.

Trevor Watkins

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[Frances Kendall]

Yes I agree Trevor - also enjoyed that piece by Garth.  I have just finished painting Mises and read up on him and he certainly seems to have been an arrogant and difficult man although he improved with age. Wen he made that comment about Rand another of the luminaries was there - Hazlitt?  And he said "You don't mean that Lou" to which von Mises replied "yes I do"!

I also painted  Adam Smith who was apparently very absent minded and had an expression of "ineffable benignity" which I think I captured. Will post them when Bob has had them photographed. Smith was a challenge as there was only one image created during his life, a profile bas-relief which looks like porcelain or some such material. None of the drawings and paintings of him since then look much like the original, so I painted from the original but did it in colour.

Sent from my iPad

[Garth Zietsman]

Thank you Trevor.

I just want to emphasize that I am in no way trying to undermine the commitment to liberty of people on this forum (or anywhere else for that matter).  One only has to listen to the news of the Secrecy Bill passing to be reminded how fragile our liberty is.  I cannot see why SA needs secrets at all.

Garth