[matej.ogorevc]

That wink was a fluke, obviously 🙂

[matej.ogorevc]

Thank you both for your answers!

[matej.ogorevc]

Thank you both for your time and input.
Much appreciated!

[matej.ogorevc]

Thank you very much for your in-depth reply and for clearing things up! Of course I understand, one could easily make this into a 200-lecture course, there is enough material to go on:)

I also went back to check and found I had made a mistake transcribing the quote. Rothbard writes “the resulting loss of resistance to disease” and NOT “loss of resistance to THE disease”, which of course makes a lot of difference.

Thanks!

[matej.ogorevc]

It does indeed help, thank you for the elaboration, though it is hard to wrap my mind around some of the reasoning behind it.

Here’s my thinking: These were very different times and in an age before the market was a widespread fact of life, people saw each other much more as rivals and a threat to each other than today, where it is cemented somewhere in the conscience of most people that we can benefit from the division of labor and cooperation with each other. Violence was ubiquitous, thus people in general and the nobility specifically were brought up to expect fighting as a fact of life, and in this culture it was their duty to excel in warfare and to showcase this in combat. On the other hand, before the ideas of individual liberty were properly understood, the clergy believed it had a divine duty to spread the ideas of Christianity and thereby save the souls of ordinary people in any way they could. Though, being human, I am sure the Church authority did not exactly frown upon the idea of spreading their power and influence and therefore embraced these crusades all the more eagerly. Would that be about right in your view?

You mention that the clergy more or less accepted warfare as a fact of life and that the best they could do was at least to channel this aggression against non-Christians and heretics. Were there any attempts to stop the bloodshed in any form, regardless? To say killing people may not be the best way, even if they are non-Christians. How widespread was this idea?

You use the term “temporal” twice, the meaning of which I cannot pin down precisely. On Wikipedia I read that it means the political power that the popes wielded, as opposed to spiritual authority, though it seems you are using it as a synonym of “secular”.

I hope I am not showering you with too many questions and I appreciate your engaging in the discussions!

[matej.ogorevc]

Possibly SoL might be referring to Mises’s remarks in “Economic Policy” on p. 2:

“However, as the rural population expanded, there developed a surplus of people on the land. For this surplus of population without inherited land or estate, there was not enough to do, nor was it possible for them to work in the processing industries; the kings of the cities denied them access. The numbers of these “outcasts” continued to grow, and still no one knew what to do with them.”

He then goes on to say that some of these outcasts created small workshops and that these were the origins modern of capitalism.

What I can’t understand is why the population continued to increase if these “outcasts” had nowhere to go and nothing to do, given the rigid social structure and the pre-industrial nature of society.

[matej.ogorevc]

I haven’t read the book but I think these two talks by Hoppe give you the gist of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkKblERRpKc

[matej.ogorevc]

So roughly 50% were slaves then..
It absolutely does help, thanks!

[matej.ogorevc]

I’m not sure I’m following… so half of the free population did not meet the requirements for citizenship (i.e. the metics). The other half that did, made up 10% of the population, meaning the free population would have to be 20%. Am I missing something?

[matej.ogorevc]

Meaning 80% were of the inhabitants were slaves and serfs? Sheesh.
Thanks for the answers!

[matej.ogorevc]

Hi everyone! My name is Matej Ogorevc, I’m 27 and I am from Slovenia, a small country of 2 million in Southern Central Europe (we used to be the northmost country of ex Yugoslavia), we’ve been a member of EU since 2004.

I received a BA in economics from the local Faculty and later enrolled into a masters program called Money and Finance here, a masters in mainstream macroeconomics, but dropped out rather quickly since it was predominantly a course in advanced mathematics, and also for lack of time.

I own a business with my brother which we inherited from our mother and we deal predominantly in importing, wholesaling and retailing sewing machines and related products, though we had to expand into various other fields since the crisis took away a big portion of our existing business. We work pretty much round the clock for a salary every factory worker would go on a strike for to keep the business afloat.

I am also a musician, played guitar in a rock band for 10 years and I still do a bit of playing and recording in my spare time. When I was a kid of 2 and 1/2 years my family moved to Berkeley for a year, which is where I learned the language and ever since I have this strong urge to go back one day and live there. Though I have to say it has been relenting lately due to all the developments you are no doubt familiar with. I have two blogs on economics, one in English and one in Slovene.

I am here because I have this weird obsession for obtaining knowledge in economics and history that isn’t shared by most of the people I know. When I was in college most of the info I got either did not make complete sense or was contradictory (big news, right). Fortunately I stumbled across a book called Empire of Debt, which for the first time made a lot of sense to me even as it is not an Austrian book. But I started researching a bit and found Peter Schiff’s videos on YouTube where he once said something to the tune “that’s not why we had the depression, read Rothbard’s book”. The rest is history.

I have this romantic notion that we can change things so I came here to get the tools, meet like-minded people and get in contact with some of the teachers who have inspired me and from whom I have learned so much in the past.

[matej.ogorevc]

I think I remember reading in Rothbard’s History of Economic Thought that it was somewhere in the area of 7%. Would that be about right?

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