[samgheb]

“Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution has some factual errors unfortunately, but not enough to effect or destroy Sutton’s main thesis. Just be cautious with it.”

What parts are you talking about and where did you read that?

[samgheb]

Following Woods’ line of using blogs which I supported as well in my earlier post, you could actively enlist your friends for your blog posts if you really want them to get involved. For example you could ask questions on facebook “what don’t liberals support gun rights” and let them rip. Then you use their arguments for your blog and post a link to your article debunking them.

[samgheb]

Pete
You’re probably wasting time debating. If you have to get involved verbally just ask questions they can’t answer. Do it like Jan Helfeld if you must:

A thing to do if you must debate is to get people to commit themselves to some principle or some position and once you have them on paper(not literally) commiting you can to work with that. A related technique is to call them out on their lack of intellectual honesty. Daring people to a challenge can work to. “You don’t really care about debating you just want to spout partisan nonesense, If you really cared you would read this article by Peter Schiff on taxes in the 50’s and give me a valid response”. This is another way to force people to commit.

The best thing to do when you get articles from friends or perhaps certain facts thrown at you is to write a blog refuting it. And instead of going through the verbal argument you can simply point them your blog post. This way you save time instead of individually lecturing each friend you have.

Enron
You have put things into perspective. Consider this website. This is a website that, according to Tom Woods, is making money teaching liberty and is growing in popularity. Would this have been possible 10 years ago? Consider the entire Ron Paul movement. He has supporters everywhere(I’m Danish and every libertarian here knows him and admires him). Consider that 50 years ago the intellectual debate was exclusively a non-free market debate at the highest level. Today nobody trusts economic planning the way they did back then. Take a look at Sweden. It used to be a socialist paradise(as if) but since the 90’s they were forced to abandon the heavy socialism and now they are moving in the right direction economicallt(although culturally they are a lost cause)

For me the promoters(or court intellectuals) are losing their outlets and quite fast. Consider the cornerstone of the American establishment, the New York Times. It is going down fast. As it goes down it loses influence. Newsweek is a symbol of this decline. Cabel tv is killing network tv. Universities are going the same way although sadly not the top class universities like Harvard but nonetheless it is important a lot is getting destroyed. And it isn’t just higher education that is losing out. As the internet will replace much of the newsmedia, as cabel tv replaces network tv, so private and internet education will replace government education. On top of that the economy in much of the West is headed for a situation where for the first time they will be forced to make big big cuts in welfare to save other welfare. You live the most exciting time for liberty. So CSA1861 has it completely right. You should be very encouraged.

EDIT: Found this article via the Teapartyeconomist.com:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/12/12/fifty-years-in-america/print

[samgheb]

Maeher
You should take a look at the second link Prof. Herbener provided. It should provide you with the answers you need. Remember that although the monograph Rothbard wrote applies to America the same basic mechanism has been going on in other countries as well. Given that the government(or kings in earlier times) are always looking for money, banks will necessarily have a upper hand. So banks and government go, and grow, together in a way. I think Thomas Jefferson said that he regretted giving government the power to borrow money.

[samgheb]

Thank you Prof. Herbener this is what I thought but I just wanted to be sure that I understood both the Austrian position and the mainstream position.

One last question. Given the stated distinction between the Austrian and Neoclassical position does this not imply that for Austrians any research or findings based on using the neoclassical definition of rational choice is useless?

[samgheb]

I think I understand this but isn’t this outlook of rationality and self interest unique to the Austrian School?

I mean Friedman and other free market economists seem to work with a view that there is such a thing as self interest that is distinct from the Austrian understanding of self interest. According to the Austrian School there is no choice to be made for any actor that isn’t in their self interest.

[samgheb]

No suggestions?

[samgheb]

Yes exactly!

Have you read the book?

[samgheb]

While we are giving thanks I want to praise you as well Prof. Jewell. I knew more American history than I even did European despite me being a European(Danish). So this course was much needed for me and very interesting. Especially thought your take on cultural/philosophical changes was particularly interesting since I have given that much attention to those things.

I too can attest that I recognize certain themese. My history teacher for European history 1800-2000(a course I took at the same time as I was listning to your courses) talked of Burke and didn’t give the French Revolution a positive spin. My university was built for marxists and I certainly recognize that this presence is still there in the form of some old school socialists but mostly cultural marxism. However despite this my teacher is a famous conservative and another professor is a former famous marxist who since denounced the old communists from cold era. A danish Eugene Genovese if you will. So I gues appointments are perhaps less political here.

[samgheb]

This is exactly what I hope this website can become not just for me but for everybody. This is why I joined this site because while I appreciate and have learned much from the courses many times when you have questions about something you wonder who to ask. With time this forum could become an invaluable assest for anybody doing research and wanting some feedback or just ideas. And the big advantage is that the forum leaves a papertrail for newcomers to follow.

Thanks again for the advice Porphyrogenitus. As always you have been very helpful.

Any tips on writing and how to present the material so you get the most out of the research and knowledge you have accumulated during the reading phase?

[samgheb]

Thanks so much for this response. Prof. Tooley makes some good points and I generally agree that you can’t seperate WWII from WWI but nonetheless if you’re arguing with somebody about WWII and trying to represent the non-interventionist view then responding that WWI was the real mistake won’t be enough. Invevitably the follow up question will be:

“Was FDR and the allies right to intervene because the effects of WWI were already set in motion whether you liked the outcome of it or not?”

I think Prof. Tooley has certainly provided some good points especially that negotiations would have been pushed for.

My last question is what any of you think of the contention that Hitler had plans for more of Europe? Now having plans is not the same as being able to excecute the plan so I suppose any counter factual analysis has to take that into account.

Also do people here agree with AJP Taylor’s book on WWII?

[samgheb]

I’m trying narrow my project now on something more specific because otherwise I won’t be able to give a fair account of neoconservatism anyway. I’m only allowed 30 pages so I’m thinking of a single case to illustrate neoconservatism. I have been thinking of perhaps using the Iraq as an example of neoconservatism in action.

Any thoughts or ideas on would could be a good case study?

[samgheb]

Does any of the professors have any answers to some of these concerns on WWII? I have wondered about this for a while so I would love to hear any counter points.

[samgheb]

I haven’t read the work he did on the Skull’s & Bones but he did seem to give this group a lot of weight.

Check out the chapter on “Court Historians” in Gary North’s excellent excellent Conspiracy: A Biblical View:
http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/conspiracy_a_biblical_view.pdf

[samgheb]

I don’t think Tom would deny anything of that really. I recall Prof. Woods recommending G.Edward Griffins Creature from Jekyll Island. That book is much more explosive than anything Rothbard wrote(not a digg at Rothbard but simply stating that Griffin goes far into conspiracy in that book.)

Sort of related but here is a piece by Alexander Tabarrok on Morgan vs the Rockefellers:
http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae1_1_1.pdf
Now Tabarrok of course runs the one of the biggest economic blogs in the world with Tyler Cowen. Tried searching for more of Tabarrok on similar issues but couldn’t find any.

SaulOhio
I don’t think Rockefeller had anything to do with the Great Depressions origin. If anything it was Morgan men who ran the FED especially their chairman at the time. According to Griffins book which is pretty well documented it happened because the Morgan men around the FED were anglophones and England was losing gold to America at the time because of Englands mistaken monetary policy and appeasment of the unions. The FED chairman and the Bank of England Chairman were close. Essentially Griffins argument is that the Morgan crowd(and by proxy America) helped/subsidized England.

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