He who knows not and knows not he knows not, He is a fool - Shun him.
He who knows not and knows he knows not, He is simple - Teach him.
He who knows and knows not he knows, he is asleep - Awaken him.
He who knows and knows that he knows, He is wise - Follow him.

-Bruce Lee

My book review of Jesus Huerta de Soto's The Austrian school: Market order and entrepreneurial creativity, forthcoming in the Review of Austrian Economics has been posted online at Springer.

My forthcoming paper in Public Choice has been posted online at Springer.

Adam Martin's great post at Aid Watch reminded me of Richard Bell's work. I remember he mentioned something akin to the following: on the American frontier people were against young women reading current literature, for fear that they would be overwhelmed with the urge to commit suicide. Instead they encouraged reading classics and romantic era literature - talk about irony.

Also be sure to check out Mark Canuel's The Shadow of Death: Literature, Romanticism, and the Subject of Punishment. Canuel argues that the romantics were critical in motivating social change away from corporal punishments. I wonder if his claim would also suffer criticism from a dose of the Martin via Levy-Peart Hypothesis. Smith and Bentham were some of the loudest critics against torture on economical / epistemic grounds.

Barkley Rosser summarizes the exchange forthcoming in Advances in Austrian Economics over at econospeak.

David Garland on Capital Punishment.

and Steven Pinker on Violence:

HT Art Carden at Division of Labor

The soundtrack against public schooling seems to be growing in size and quality

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

This brief post made me think of Russ Roberts' general intention behind Invisible Heart - empathetic classical liberalism. Roberts' sort of describes the brilliance and majesty of iPencil stories, the power of choice and the wonderment of spontaneous orders. Isn't it all so obviously good? Dan Klein's friend Joy would certainly agree.

When we compare Roberts' project to this post (or something like it) - mainly an artistic device that communicates an opposing perspective - it holds another implication that the conclusions of social science are merely matters of interpretation. In that sense social science is no science at all.

At this point the debate almost inevitably appears empirical. From which source is the majority of social order stemming from - voluntary exchange or governmental design and prodding? Can we measure this, if yes then how do we know that we're doing it right?

Robert's approach wins here, his ongoing collection and restating the beauty of iPencil stories gives his readers a vision as to the infinite complexity and size of the economy.