[samgheb]

Thanks so much for the suggestions. They have all been very helpful and especially yours Porphyrogenitus. You raised many of the concerns I have had with this theme. I have no interest in doing a smearjob on them. Rather I want to figure out what actually constitutes neoconservatism as it is understood by its followers and originators.

The reason why I wanted journal articles is mostly because I might not be able to borrow or buy all the books needed so other sources that I can use would be practical.

Re; Bagus
I wrote Bagus and he could only help with a couple of sources supporting his view. And I found a couple of flaws myself so I wondered if I could succesfully argue the case.

[samgheb]

If you want to know Rothbard on anything then use the search function on Lew Rockwell.com. It’s a great starting place if you want to know the libertarian perspective on an issue.

http://www.google.com/cse?cx=003957976021531095527%3Afocviubplue&ie=UTF-8&q=Murray+rothbard+machinary+of+freedo&sa=Search&siteurl=www-open-opensocial.googleusercontent.com%2Fgadgets%2Fifr%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252Fcse%252Fapi%252F003957976021531095527%252Fcse%252Ffocviubplue%252Fgadget%26container%3Dopen%26view%3Dhome%26lang%3Dall%26country%3DALL%26debug%3D0&ref=www.lewrockwell.com%2F&ss=9445j4313775j45#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=Murray%20rothbard%20machinery%20of%20freedom

[samgheb]

I have decided to ditch this project because my professor didn’t think it was sustainable and given that I couldn’t find much support for it I couldn’t really argue this thesis.

[samgheb]

Thank you so much for your answers and your time

[samgheb]

re: Compensation
I agree that compensation shouldn’t be added on top of our consumer purchases but surely we can’t just disregard compensation altogether when trying to figure out how what is going on with regards to living standards?

re:Measuring living standards
What sort of index or measure do you think is the best indicator for telling use about improvement in living standards?

re:Concerning the Sowell quote
I’m not sure I understand your first point:
“You’re quote by Sowell illustrates why economists look at real wages and per capita income. If you look at real wages there is evidence of stagnation.”
From that quote I read that he disagrees that there has been any stagnation and that the reason economists claim that there has been economic stagnation is that they look at household income instead of tracking individuals. I tried to look to the source data from the graph on
“Real Average Hourly Earnings January 1964-October 2005” from the link you gave me which took me to this site:
http://macroblog.typepad.com/macroblog/2005/12/are_workers_los.html

From there I saw that the data was from Bureau of Labor Statistics but I couldn’t open the data because I didn’t have the program you need to open the data.
However if the data turns out to be on household income then wouldn’t Sowell be right that there has in fact not been any stagnation since the 70’s?

[samgheb]

Thanks for the answer Prof. Herbener

“As the linked blog discusses, it’s controversial to claim that government mandated benefits constitute part of standard of living in the same way that voluntarily chosen goods and services do.”
I have sometimes read by free market economists that usually the government numbers don’t show these benefits but the mere fact that the recipients use these benefits prove that they are useful in some way to the recipient. So surely we can’t discount them can we?

“So the direct measure of standards of living is to investigate what set of goods and services households have and see how it changes over time.”
I think Mises said that there is no scientific way of judging whether or not the living standard has been higher. That you can’t use any index per se to make a scientific claim one way or the other. If I understood that correctly I gues that means we have to make informed opinions. Is that right?

I remember a clip by Thomas Sowell where he said that income stagnation was a fallacy. He pointed out that the problem lies in the way we measure income in terms of households.

“It is an undisputed fact that the average real income… of American households rose by only 6 percent from 1969 to 1996… But it is an equally undisputed fact that the average real income per person in the United States rose by 51% over that very same period. How can both these statistics be true? Because the average number of people per household was declining during those years.”

[samgheb]

For the reasons mentioned so far. Initially the banks were still close to Obama I think. Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase was considered a possibility for the treasury for some time but things turned a bit sour between them. I think Dodd-Frank wasn’t too popular either.

The one I find the most damning though is Jeffrey Immelt who was paraded by Obama initially and now Immelt is going for Romney which is a bit embarrassing for Obama.

Charlie Gasparino has written a book on the relationship between Obama and Wall Street and he goes into how Obama wowed Wall Street in 2007.
http://www.amazon.com/Bought-Paid-Unholy-Alliance-Between/dp/1595230718/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351037834&sr=1-2&keywords=charlie+gasparino

[samgheb]

Prof. Woods

I read Gottfried’s review of the book and he questioned two of the central arguments against intervention by Buchanan.

Nr.1
He says that it isn’t likely that the ideal scenario from non-interventionists of the Nazi’ss and the Soviet bleeding each other was unlikely given that Germany only struggled on two front war and without England/France Germany could have focused on the Soviet Union:

“The only way Hitler was driven from power was in a two-front war, and tens of millions necessarily died to achieve that end. Although actions might have been taken to end that war sooner, and in a less unconditional and more humane fashion, without conceding Eastern Europe to Stalin, England could not have gotten rid of the Nazi government without taking up arms. Certainly the U.S. could not have afforded that luxury.”

Nr.2
That Hitler wouldn’t have gone westward is also not the case according to Gottfried:

“A wealth of evidence, including broad hints in the Hossbach Denkschrift (November 1937), in which Hitler had revealed his plans for territorial acquisition to his generals, indicate that German westward expansion was in the cards even before the Anschluss with Austria in March 1938. ”

If Gottfried is right it rather hard to still hold a non-intervention position on WWII although obviously just having refrained from entering WWI would be ideal.

http://takimag.com/article/buchanan_kennan_and_the_good_war/print#ixzz2AAbc5p4L

[samgheb]

If you read the academic reviews on Jstore for example you don’t see too much appreciation from what I remember when I checked.

But Sutton is incredibly sharp. Try watching to some of his videos on youtube to see what you’re in for. His Wall Street series is pretty good.

His most controversial work which still got acceptance was his work on Western technology and the Soviet Union which Daniel Pipes praised in one of his books on Russia. You can find the Wall Street series online in case you want to read a little of the books before you buy them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_C._Sutton

[samgheb]

Thanks for the answer Prof. Herbener

[samgheb]

I already have. I asked him if there were any other book that has divided up the history of the EU in the way he has. This what he wrote me:

“Unfortunately I cannot think on books who separate it the exaxt way as
I did. But Hans Sennholz How Can Europe Survive? comes to mind. Also
works by Ludwig Erhard on Europe as cited in my book (2nd ed.).
Please send me your bachelor project when finished.”

Ultimately I have to be able to prove that the 2 visions of Europe has existed and have been in conflict. I have considered that since my counselor didn’t buy that this was the premier conflict in EU history perhaps I could still do it by proxy. I could write it as the fight between Germany and France and in that way I can sneak the Bagus narrative through the backdoor.

[samgheb]

The problem is that my counselor tried to explain to me that there is not one dichotomy of classical liberal vs socialist empire but rather many ones. Like visions based on catholic vs protestant.

For example Bagus’ divide is rather flawed in that the nortern European countries are protestant and why would those countries be more inspired by the catholic principle of subsidiary. And conversley why would the actual catholic countries be against this? My counselor named other ways of dividing Europe as well.

In other words it is not enough for me to prove you can make a particular distinction between classical liberal vs socialist empire but that this has been THE important battle going on in the development of the EU. This is where my counselor was sceptical.

[samgheb]

No problem I appreciate the effort. 🙂

[samgheb]

I hope you do because I think this is a very important historical event. Not so much for Austrians but rather for those conservatives who want to point to something to show that austerity(in the real sense) works. I’m sure somebody who could write a book on this topic would get some attention.

[samgheb]

Until you get a longer answer from one of the experts I’ll leave you with this video from Thomas Sowell:

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