Thought the Hayek vs Keynes rap was awesome? The sequel is going to blow your mind!
Haven't seen the first one? Fix that!
The "Fight of the Century" delves deeply into the economic theories of Keynes and Hayek. The catchy song explains Hayek’s knowledge-based argument against central planning and cuts Keynesian arguments down with sound and easy-to-understand logic.
After you're done geeking out over this and memorizing the lyrics, remember to share with your friends! Hayek said the second-hand dealers of ideas change public opinion, and boy do we have a long way to go when it comes to changing public opinion against Keynesian ideas and for the ideas of liberty!
PS: listen through the credit roll to hear a shout out out to Malthus & Mises!
Each Thursday the AUSFL Blog will post a new short summary of an important figure in liberty, focusing on ones applicable to students at AU. Next up, Frederic Bastiat:
Don't let the stuffy cravat fool you, Bastiat was the original snarky economist
Bio
Frederic Bastiat was a French classical liberal economist, writer, and thinker. His greatest work is titled What is Seen and What is Not Seen. That book was one of the first real origins of the idea of unintended consequences.
So why should you care?
He popularized the fallacy of the broken broken window fallacy and is one of the liberty movement’s great forefathers. Bastiat’s pieces like The Negative Railroad and the Candlemaker’s Petition are great works of satire, especially thinking that he was writing entirely before 1850. The idea of making change through satire and popular analogies can be seen to this day, and can be traced as far back as his writing.
On untended consequences, the idea is one of the most important concepts of economic thought, and was further expanded by Henry Hazlitt in Economics in One Lesson. On top of that, it’s highly applicable to the poli sci, IR, orother social science field you’re probably studying. For poli sci, you have to look at whether a law will do more than what it is intended once enacted. In IR, and especially development, it’s important to make sure what you’re doing isn’t hurting those you’re trying to help.
If you read only one thing…
The Economics of Freedom: What Your Professor Won't Tell You, produced by Students For Liberty and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. It’s a great collection of his most important writings, condensed into a convenient book. Can't wait for the book? Check out free, easy to read, and online version of The Bastiat Collection
Extra Credit
For some definite laughs, write a satirical op-ed in the same vain as he did and submit it to a newspaper. It’s a fun way to spread the ideas of good economic thinking.
Ayn Rand once stated that she hated libertarians because of they were simply "hippies of the right". Well Ayn, you may have been a literary genius but I take your jab as a compliment! Lovers of liberty without hyphens, the real libertarians, support legalization of marijuana based purely on principle, no matter what their personal desire to partake in reefer madness may be. The best litmus test for grading any policy is the simple "You can swing your fist as long as it does not hit my nose" mantra, and smoking marijuana most certainly clings to the non harm principle. Weed is not only safer than alcohol, but the failed Drug War has created a terrible black market that has resulted in countless lives ruined and many lives lost ( for the law enforcement officers, civilians caught in crossfire, and those tangled with the drug cartels). If the simple principle argument does not appeal to you, consider this: legalizing marijuana and taxing it would yield $14 billion every year, the drug cartels would lose a significant amount of power, law enforcement would get to go back and concentrate on the job they are actually supposed to do--protecting people who are unjustly harmed by other people, and children would not have easy access to it as they do now.
But that was a tangent. Check out what AUSFL did for 4/20:
Treasurer of AUSFL, tabled in MGC for 3 hours, giving away Pot Brownies to students walking by:
Pre packaged Little Debbie brownies in pots...."pot brownies," get it???
In the back of each brownie was a super awesome fact about why the drug war is failing and why marijuana should be legalized. We only stated facts and statistics pulled from official studies, such as the one done by Harvard's Jeffrey Miron.
If you would like to learn more, check out the following short and awesome videos:
Who actually benefits from the Drug War?
What do former Law Enforcement officers who were in the front lines of the Drug War have to say?
The real reason why pot is still illegal: corporatism & rent seeking sucks.
Hope you enjoyed your 4/20! And remember: no matter what your personal decision is about marijuana, you can always stand behind it by teleological principles and deontological reasons!
