WalterBlock.com

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/that-slap/

From: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2022 10:48 AM

Subject: RE: Wilson’s War

—

Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2022 7:06 AM

To: [email protected]

Subject: Your recent article “Woke Military” at Lew Rockwell’s site

You write “Had this country [the U.S.A.] not entered world war I, the two sides would have run out of soldiers, on both sides, thanks to losses in trench warfare”.

That does not happen to be the case. That certainly happened to the Central Powers, at any rate in broad terms*, after the German offensive of March 1918 failed (before the U.S.A. had contributed materially), but after that the Allies had victory locked in anyway – regardless of the U.S.A..

* Running out of war materiel and food supplies probably made more of a bottleneck for the Central Powers – the latter in large part from diverting fertiliser production and agricultural labour to munitions and recruits, respectively.

Yours sincerely,

P.M.

Dear Peter:

I asked a knowledgeable friend of mine about this. Here’s his response

Best regards,

Walter

From: John

Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2022 3:21 PM

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Wilson’s War

sure.

—

From: Walter Block <[email protected]>

To: John

Sent: Wed, Apr 6, 2022 1:17 pm

Subject: RE: Wilson’s War

Dear John:

Thanks. I’d like to share this with others. May I do so?

Best regards,

Walter

From: John

Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2022 6:31 AM

To: [email protected]

Subject: Wilson’s War

After Myth of the Great War came out, a colleague of mine accosted me, said abruptly he’d read it. “So if we hadn’t entered the war, no Hitler, no Stalin.”

This guy was a total crapweasel, but head and shoulders above our colleagues, not least in how he figured out that the so-called “higher education” was a sort pyramid scheme, wangled a comfortable berth here and spent the next thirty plus years doing nothing—proof that he was pretty smart.  Definitely ahead of me in figuring things out.

And actually, as far as hypotheticals go, he was probably right.

The only certainty is that (a) our involvement supporting France and the UK was crucial in enabling them to continue fighting after fall 1914, (b), after we entered the war we kept the Brits from starving, and (c), the battlefield performance of American troops was what made the Germans ask for an armistice.

Although generations of British historians and their slavish American followers have so distorted the history of WW1 that these things can’t be mentioned, they’re all easy to document.  But as Huxley famously quipped, just because a fact is ignored, doesn’t mean it isn’t a fact.

In late November 1918, in an interview with the well-known American reporter, George Seldes, Von Hindenburg said that without the presence of US troops on the battlefield, the war would have, at worst, ended in a draw.   When I brought that up later on, an established historian dismissed it by saying ‘oh, he just said that.’   Which tells you how our history gets written.

Similarly, established American historians can’t bear to tell the truth about Wilson.  For instance, one such, after doing a very fine job of detailing how WW distorted the meaning of neutrality, ignored British violations, and so forth, brushed it all away by saying since he felt he was right, it was justified.  As I pointed out to one of his colleagues, by that standard so was Hitler.  He didn’t disagree, but he kept on beautifying Wilson.

As Voltaire remarked back in the 1740s: “unhappily, it is thus that all the histories of our times will be handed down to posterity so altered, that they will be unable to distinguish truth from falsehoods.”

Of course the rest of it gets tricky.  My own view is that the Paris “Peace” Conference of 1919 was the real villain.  Wilson, having gotten us into a war where no national interests were at stake, then ensured not only the next war, but all the rest.

I can make a convincing case that if the two German empires had been left intact, communism would never have survived, and so forth and so on.  So Professor SpongeFraud was right in his conclusion.  Wilson gave us both Hitler and Stalin.

Stultum facit fortuna quem vult perdere.

Or, as Dryden put it:

For those whom God to ruin has design’d,

He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind

2:58 am on April 8, 2022

The Best of Walter E. Block

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/thin-and-thick-markets-real-estate-and-stock-brokers/

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/foreign-aid-to-ukraine/

From: Elliot Resnick

Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2022 8:29 AM

To: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Subject: my take on the Ukraine-Russia war

Hi,

I thought you might be interested in my latest article, in which I argue that a more humble foreign policy might have prevented this conflict: https://townhall.com/columnists/elliotresnick/2022/03/03/whos-responsible-for-russias-invasion-n2604040.  Feel free to share. 🙂

Best regards,

Elliot

________________________________________

From: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Sent: Friday, March 11, 2022 9:08 PM

To: Elliot Resnick

Subject: RE: my take on the Ukraine-Russia war

Dear Elliot:

Excellent.

Here’s me on a similar subject:

Block, Walter E. 2022. “Russia and Ukraine.” March 5;

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/march/05/russia-and-ukraine/

Best regards,

Walter

From: Elliot

Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2022 9:08 PM

To: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: my take on the Ukraine-Russia war

Thank you for sending me your article.  The lack of self-awareness among American elite is staggering.  For 15 years, Putin has been complaining about NATO, and for 15 years we have been ignoring everything he says thanks to our imperious attitude that outsiders rightfully call “American arrogance.”  Now, of course, everyone pretends to shocked and outraged.  But, as you write, it’s largely our fault.

Sincerely,

Elliot

4:25 am on March 19, 2022

The Best of Walter E. Block

From: N o

Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2022 6:53 PM

To: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Subject: Standard Oil

Hello Dr. Block.

I was wondering if you knew of any scholarly papers on the topic of standard oil? I already know of the John McGee one thanks to your previous response, but I was wondering if there were any others.

Thank you.

From: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2022 7:42 PM

To: ‘N o’

Subject: RE: Standard Oil

Dear Guriy:

Sorry, I know of nothing more than that. But that McGee article is really excellent.

However, this material might be of interest to you:

For an Austrian critique of neoclassical monopoly theory, see Anderson, et. al., 2001; Armentano, 1972, 1982, 1989, 1999; Armstrong, 1982; Barnett, et. al., 2005, 2007; Block, 1977, 1982, 1994; Block and Barnett, 2009; Boudreaux and Costea, 2003; DiLorenzo,  1992, 1996; DiLorenzo and High, 1988; Henderson, 2013; High,1984-1985; Hull, 2005; McChesney, 1991; McGee, 1958; Rothbard, 2004; Shugart, 1987; Smith, 1983; Tucker, 1998A, 1998B

Anderson, William, Walter E. Block , Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Ilana Mercer, Leon Snyman and Christopher Westley. 2001. “The Microsoft Corporation in Collision with Antitrust Law,” The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1, Winter, pp. 287-302

Armentano, Dominick T. 1972. The Myths of Antitrust, New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House.

Armentano, Dominick T. 1982. Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure, New York: Wiley

Armentano, Dominick T. 1989.  “Antitrust Reform: Predatory Practices and the Competitive Process.” Review of Austrian Economics. Vol. 3, pp. 61-74. http://www.mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae3_1_4.pdf

Armentano, Dominick T. 1999. Antitrust: The Case for Repeal.  Revised 2nd ed., Auburn AL: Mises Institute

Armstrong, Donald. 1982. “Competition versus Monopoly: Combines Policy in Perspective.” The Fraser Institute: Vancouver, BC, Canada

Barnett, William, Walter E. Block and Michael Saliba. 2005. “Perfect Competition: A Case of ‘Market-Failure,’” Corporate Ownership & Control. Vol. 2, No. 4, summer, p. 70-75

Barnett, William II, Walter E. Block and Michael Saliba. 2007. “Predatory pricing.” Corporate Ownership & Control, Vol. 4, No. 4, Continued – 3, Summer; pp. 401-406

Block, Walter E. 1977. “Austrian Monopoly Theory — a Critique,” The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. I, No. 4, Fall, pp. 271-279.

Block, Walter E. 1982. Amending the Combines Investigation Act, Vancouver: The Fraser Institute.

Block, Walter E. 1994. “Total Repeal of Anti-trust Legislation: A Critique of Bork, Brozen and Posner, Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 35-70.

Block, Walter and William Barnett. 2009. “Monopsony Theory.” American Review of Political Economy. June/December, Vol. 7(1/2), pp. 67-109; http://www.arpejournal.com/ARPEvolume7number1-2/Block-Barnett.pdf; http://www.arpejournal.com/

Boudreaux, Donald J., and DiLorenzo, Thomas J. 1992. “The Protectionist Roots of Antitrust,” Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 81-96

Costea, Diana. 2003. “A Critique of Mises’s Theory of Monopoly Prices.” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. Vol. 6, No. 3, Fall, pp. 47-62; http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae6_3_3.pdf

DiLorenzo, Thomas J. 1996. “The Myth of Natural Monopoly,” Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 43-58; http://www.mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf; https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly

DiLorenzo, Tom and Jack High. 1988. “Antitrust and Competition, Historically Considered,” Economic Inquiry, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 423-435, July.

Henderson, David R. 2013. “The Robber Barons: Neither Robbers nor Barons.” Library of Economics and Liberty. March 4;

http://www.econlib.org/cgi-bin/printarticle2.pl?file=Columns/y2013/Hendersonbarons.html

High, Jack. 1984-1985. “Bork’s Paradox: Static vs Dynamic Efficiency in Antitrust Analysis,” Contemporary Policy Issues, Vol. 3, pp. 21-34.

Hull, Gary, ed. 2005. The Abolition of Antitrust. New Brunswick, NJ:  Transaction Publishers

McChesney, Fred. 1991. “Antitrust and Regulation: Chicago’s Contradictory Views,” Cato Journal, Vol. 10; https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1991/1/cj10n3-10.pdf

McGee, John S.  1958. “Predatory Price Cutting: The Standard Oil (New Jersey) Case,” The Journal of Law and Economics, October, pp. 137-169

Rothbard, Murray N. (2004 [1962]). Man, Economy and State, Auburn AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, Scholar’s Edition; http://www.mises.org/rothbard/mes.asp

Shugart II, William F. 1987. “Don’t Revise the Clayton Act, Scrap It!,” 6 Cato Journal, 925

Smith, Jr., Fred L. 1983. “Why not Abolish Antitrust?,” Regulation, Jan-Feb, 23; http://cei.org/op-eds-and-articles/why-not-abolish-antitrust

Tucker, Jeffrey. 1998A. “Controversy: Are Antitrust Laws Immoral?” Journal of Markets & Morality. Vol. 1, No. 1, March, pp. 75-82; http://www.acton.org/publications/mandm/mandm_controversy_35.php

Tucker, Jeffrey. 1998B. “Controversy: Are Antitrust Laws Immoral? A Response to Kenneth G. Elzinga.” Journal of Markets & Morality. Vol. 1, No. 1, March, pp. 90-94; http://www.acton.org/publications/mandm/mandm_controversy_37.php

Best regards,

Walter

4:23 am on March 19, 2022

The Best of Walter E. Block

From: Recep

Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 6:08 AM

To: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Subject: It is me Recep, About Mises Institute submission

Dear Mr. Block,

I hope you and your loved ones are doing great.

I am so sorry for bothering you, if you are not available for that I completely understand. No problem for me.

I have been trying to submit an article (which article you can find in the attachments section) to Mises Wire, I have talked with Mr. Anderson and he said “we like to be able to link our economics and policy articles to Austrian Economics, so make sure you do that.”.

Do you have any ideas how can I somehow connect the article with Austrian approach?

I have already criticized Phillips Curve before revision. Additionally, after revision, I added a Mises quote about QE. However, I could not think about anything else.

Sincerely,

Recep

From: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2022 12:14 PM

To: resmi

Subject: FW: It is me Recep, About Mises Institute submission

Recep

Dear Recep:

The way to Austrianize this would be to bring in the Austrian business cycle theory. When govt artificially lowers the interest rate, it promotes all sorts of investment, short run as well as long run. But this policy has a much stronger effect on the latter. Entrepreneurs are led by a false “invisible hand” to make excessive long run investments which are not sustainable, given that savings have not changed.

I’m copying my friend Hans Hoppe on this, since he is a world leading expert on ABCT and resides in Turkey.

Here are some readings for you:

Barnett and Block, 2012; Garrison, 2001; Hayek, 1931; Mises, 1912, 1949; Rothbard,  1962, 1963, 1969, 1990, 1993; Woods, 2009

Barnett, William II and Walter E. Block. 2012. Essays in Austrian Economics. New York: Ishi Press;

http://www.amazon.com/Essays-Austrian-Economics-William-Barnett/dp/4871873242/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348528287&sr=1-1&keywords=essays+in+Austrian+economics

Garrison, Roger W. 2001. Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure. London: Routledge;

Hayek, Friedrich A. 1931. Prices and Production, London: Routledge.

Mises, Ludwig von. [1912] 1953. The Theory of Money and Credit [originally published in German in 1912]. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Mises, Ludwig von. [1949] 1998. Human Action, Scholars’ Edition. Auburn: Mises Institute.

http://mises.org/resources/3250

Rothbard, Murray N. [1962] 1991. “The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar,” In Search of a Monetary Constitution, Leland B. Yeager, ed., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 94-136, and Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute. See also “The Logic of Action One” pp. 364-384; http://mises.org/story/1829; http://mises.org/rothbard/100percent.pdf

Rothbard, M. 1963.  America’s Great Depression. Kansas City: Sheed Andrews.

http://www.mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf

Rothbard, Murray N. 1969. Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure, Lansing, Michigan: Constitutional Alliance; http://mises.org/tradcycl/econdepr.asp; http://mises.org/daily/3127/Economic-Depressions-Their-Cause-and-Cure

Rothbard, Murray N. 1990. What Has Government Done to Our Money?, Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute; http://www.mises.org/rothbard/rothmoney.pdf

Rothbard, Murray N. 1993.  Man, Economy, and State, 2 vols., Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute

Woods, Thomas E. Jr. 2009. Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing

Stay safe.

Best regards,

Walter

3:41 am on March 13, 2022

The Best of Walter E. Block

From: Anders

Sent: Saturday, March 5, 2022 6:57 AM

To: wblock@loyno.edu

Subject: Thanks!

Hi Mr Block.

I just wanted to let you know that what you do, and your thinking, has a real world impact. I bet you know this, being a teacher. But with the internet you have a fare reach! And for a young man on the west coast of Norway, I am greatful for the way you help me understand the world and how I should be able to conduct myself in the world. I will make sure to pass on knowledge to my young boys when they grow up.

I did find your talk with Doug Casey a couple of months ago real insightful.

So, thanks for doing what you do, and I will continue reading and talking about this content!

Cheers from Norway

Beste helsing Anders L.

On Saturday, March 5th, 2022 at 18:28, Walter Block <wblock@loyno.edu> wrote:

Dear Anders:

Thanks for your kind words. I hope and trust you don’t mind that I share this with Doug.

Stay safe.

Best regards,

Walter

From: Anders

Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2022 1:33 AM

To: Walter Block <wblock@loyno.edu>

Subject: RE: Thanks!

Hi again,

And thanks for getting back to me! And yes, it would be awesome if you let Doug know. I hope to get in touch with him myself, I just joind his Telegram group that he use to get questions and imput to his youtube channel.

Are you optimistic about the future? You have been around far longer then me, and seen different times and changes. I am about 50/50 optimisitc about the future, I feel people are somewhat hungry for something else, like the Yellow west, Freedom Truckers etc. But I do think that we don’t really know to much about our options of alternatives.

All the best,

Anders

From: Walter Block <wblock@loyno.edu>

Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2022 2:33 PM

To: ‘Anders

Subject: RE: Thanks!

Dear Anders:

I am not optimistic:

Levendis, John, Walter E. Block and Robert B. Eckhardt.  2019. “Evolutionary psychology, economic freedom, trade and benevolence.” Review of Economic Perspectives - Národohospodářský obzor; Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 73-92; https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/revecp/19/2/article-p73.xml; 10.2478/revecp-2019-0005; DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/revecp-2019-0005; https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/here-is-one-of-my-best-scholarly-papers-ever/; https://pennstate.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/evolutionary-psychology-economic-freedom-trade-and-benevolence; https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.2478%252Frevecp-2019-0005/reade; file:///C:/Users/WBlock/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/18LCUGME/18041663%20-%20Review%20of%20Economic%20Perspectives%20Evolutionary%20psychology%20economic%20freedom%20trade%20and%20benevolence.pdf

Best regards,

Walter

The post Optimism or Pessimism? appeared first on LewRockwell.

From: R.J.

Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2022 9:35 PM

To:

Celebrating the anniversary of the publication of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom in the UK.   Needed now, more than ever.

Dear RJ:

I don’t think we should be celebrating this book. He gave away more than half the store:

Block, Walter E. 1996. “Hayek’s Road to Serfdom,” Journal of Libertarian Studies: An Interdisciplinary Review, Vol. 12, No. 2, Fall, pp. 327-350, http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/12_2/12_2_6.pdf; reprinted in Ama-gi: Journal of the Hayek Society at the London School of Economics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 22-25

Block, Walter E. 2006. “Fanatical, Not Reasonable: A Short Correspondence Between Walter E. Block and Milton Friedman (on Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom).” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3, Summer, pp. 61-80; http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/20_3/20_3_4.pdf; https://mises.org/system/tdf/20_3_4.pdf?file=1&type=document

Best regards,

Walter

The post Road to Serfdom appeared first on LewRockwell.