At 8 pm on Friday 14th, the day after tomorrow, I am giving a talk to the Oxford Libertarian Society, as mentioned here. I killed two birds with one stone by listening this evening to a talk given on October 24th to the Society by Professor David Friedman, concerning which they have a report (and a link to the recording) on their blog, here. I wanted to hear what Professor Friedman had to say because I always want to hear what he says, he having been one of my favourite libertarians ever since I first read The Machinery of Freedom in about 1975. And, by listening to what Friedman said to the Oxford Libertarians and to the questions they asked of him after he had spoken, I now have a better idea of what kind of audience they will be and what they’ve recently been attending to and thinking about. More recently, their blog flagged up their video of the same event. I’ll be watching some of that too.
Today, they put up a blog posting advertising my talk. Its heading is a little out of date, but it describes what I used to do far more energetically than I do now, and what I will be talking about: Propagandising for Liberty. My use of the word propaganda is deliberate in this connection. For me, propaganda is a neutral term, meaning simply: that which should be propagated. But there is, I agree, a whiff of intimidation about the word, of weight of argument in the gross tonnage sense as well as merely in the sense of intellectual power. But how to contrive such effects without incurring crippling costs? I don’t have all the answers, but will offer some and I will be paying particular attention to universities.
By the way, David Friedman’s talk to the LA/LI conference on the afternoon following his Oxford talk, on the impact of various revolutionary near-future technologies, can now be viewed as well as heard, here.
I went to the Hans-Hermann Hoppe talk this term and though they’ve changed their name from the “Oxford Hayek Society”, things haven’t changed that much. Still a lot of smart and shyish blokes and still pretty much no ladies. I thought it was pretty boring, but then I’ve heard all the ideas before and I guess I used to find them pretty damn exciting. The best bit was watching some leftard in the front row going absolutely apoplectic and when one of the token girls in the room put on her best nice-but-dim voice and asked “but what about free healthcare?”.
I understand that Friedman was better attended, but I couldn’t go and I can’t go to this. I wish they’d stop doing these things on Friday nights.
Anyway, good luck, not that you’ll need it, they’re very nice blokes.
Oh, what I’d pay to have a libertarian present ideas where I went to college!
That talk was really excellent—I was there. Friedman, myself and one of my friends had a really good conversation about Objectivism and Popper before the show started, though; shame they didn’t get that in the recording. It was great fun.
However, I am also aware of arguments that market failure does not exist; I put this to Friedman in a vague, roundabout way in my question at the end (something about everything being both a pubilc good and a private good, IIRC). I seem to remember he didn’t buy it. I shall have to think of better arguments for this in future.
“Market failure” – it depends what you mean (although I seem like Bill Clinton typing that).
If you mean “will the market produce Heaven on Earth” and if it does not it has failed – well then yes there is market failure. The market is just the civil (voluntary) interactions of human beings – and we do not tend to produce perfection, although we can figure out better ways of doing things over time with a mixture of experience and thought.
Also if you mean “market failure” in the technical sense of the “perfect competition model” well also yes. But then the perfect competition model of neoclassical economics is a load of dingo’s kidneys.
However, most people when they say “market failure” are really saying “the government will do better in this case” and, no, the government will do worse.
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