the battle for truth

Today I heard Thomas DiLorenzo speak at Hampden-Sydney. He talked about his book, How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold history of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present. I brought my mother in hopes of her biting onto some part of the libertarian ideology. Dr. DiLorenzo was an interesting speaker and I enjoyed the talk.

I’ve been thinking recently about what I’d be interested in writing in the future, that is, what I’d like to attempt to publish in the long run. Recently, I had decided that I wanted to try to publish something that I considered ‘worth while’ – something that would be ground breaking in economics or philosophy or political science. I think that it is highly unlikely that I will think of or publish something of this nature, but it’s a noble goal. I’m under the impression that some economists and political theorists of libertarian leanings believe that the theory-side is ‘done’ and all that is left for us to do now is relate again and again to the masses what Mises or Rothbard have already written for us. This may be true, but if it is, it’s a depressing truth for me. I would love to add some real value to the science of economics instead of simply pointing out what others have already discovered. Other up and coming economists think that they can have satisfying and profitable careers in academia simply by applying old economic theories to different sectors of the economy. I sincerely hope that I am not stuck doing this in a few years.

So… a few things changed my opinion today… First, DiLorenzo’s book… It was written for non-economics studying people. It has sections in it explaining that robber-barons are myths, that capitalism made workers in the industrial revolution rich, that capitalism did not cause the Great Depression, and that anti-trust laws do not work. I have to preface talking about the book by reminding myself that it was intended for common people – not students of economics. Each section that he mentioned in the talk about his book repeated economic theories that virtually any student would be familiar with. Until tonight, I would have thought that this was mostly a waste. He said that he wrote the book in response to the Enron and Worldcom crises. He thought that many academics would write silly things arguing that these crises were direct results of liaise-faire capitalism. Of course, he was right. Many books of this sort followed from the Enron and Worldcom scandals. His book is a direct counter to these. It is a defense of capitalism using theory backed by statistics. I thought Human Action had it pretty well covered, but this book is much more accessible.

I think it was naive of me to think that people would seek out truth in a library or a class room when the vast majority of literature and education went in the face of it. Someone told me recently that I should publish as many books or articles as I possibly could because there were so many more socialists publishing that the libertarians had to respond with similar output to compete. This is beginning to make sense to me. Tonight, I discovered the blog, http://www.bkmarcus.com/blog/ and I read this entry - http://www.bkmarcus.com/blog/2006/09/fighting-for-truth.html

He quotes Rothbard near the end of the entry:

Menger and Bohm apparently insisted on the naive view that truth will always win out, unaided, not realizing that this is hardly the way truth ever wins out in the academic or any other arena. Truth must be promoted, organized, and fought for as against error. Even if we can hold the faith that truth, unaided by strategy or tactics, will win out in the long run, it is unfortunately an excruciatingly long run in which all too many of us -- certainly including Mises -- will be dead.

I was impressed by this quote, as I am by many of Rothbard’s quotes. I think Rothbard is right, again. DiLorenzo’s book held more value for me after reading that blog entry. Thank you, lowercase liberty. I’m beginning to change my perspective on what I’d think of as an acceptable topic to attempt publishing. Since truth-seeking doesn’t seem to be a high priority for many people… and since many people will be required to seriously shift our society away from socialism, it must be our goal to share our ideas with others and not just wait around until they discover them on their own.