Incidentally, Chris threw in the towel when he urged people several months ago to vote for Ron Paul, who personifies Austrian economics. Were Austrian economics — a positive, not a normative, set of statements, I add in vain for the millionth time — a wicked thing, how could a Catholic be urged to vote for its political representative?

So Chris has abandoned this fight. Admirable that you’re carrying on without him, but it’s over.

The Austrian School does not take any position on Spencer and his philosophy. The Austrian School is purely descriptive; it is positive, not normative. So you can find many valuable insights in the School, and still retain your commitment to whatever state activities float your boat.

You are unable or unwilling to distinguish between the political philosophy of libertarianism and the economic thought of the Austrians. You don’t like the former. I get that. Thanks. But why, other than irrational belligerence, are you so unwilling to learn anything from the economists of the school? Sorry, but that’s pigheaded. I’m not going to dance around it. That is anti-intellectual in the extreme.

You have given me no reason not to believe in the heterogeneity of capital, the law of returns, or the regression theorem. As soon as you do, I’ll listen.

In other words, if one already knows that Austrian School grounds itself on 2 exceptions to the “law of equal freedom” (as annunciated by Spenser in the 19thC), namely that one must not steal the property of another and one must not harm another; when it grounds itself in defending the rights of property owners and protecting them; and when it declares that these 2 exceptions to the the law of equal freedom be the ONLY moral absolutes, presupposing a position of indifference to any other morally absolute claims (like gay marriage; pornography; euthanasia, etc.)–when it grounds itself in these 2 moral absolutes and a position of indifference to other moral absolutes and the upholding of all of the other constituents of Spenser’s”law of equal freedom” , I myself see a problem for “man” and the whole of social life. 

I say it again: your focus on the atomic particularities of the Austrian School are a smoke screen for the pernicious fundamental assumptions which are the very roots of this school.   

And, yes, I would indeed like to know the philosophy of life of the chemist I’m reading.  Why? Because I believe that while the chemist’s philosophy of life ought not to have any influence over my understanding of the “practice” of chemistry it most certainly MUST have an influence over my concern for the “ends” of chemistry. Does he practice chemistry so he can make money, build a house? And never mind that he builds his wealth by contributing to the manufacture of atomic weapons. Or does he practice chemistry for more intrinsically good reasons. These questions (moral questions having nothing to do with protecting the property owner) matter to me, yes–even as they get sidelined by the Austrian School.

Also, I would be delighted to see an example of my alleged lack of clarity.  That is one thing I have never been accused of, and I have been accused of a lot.

Ferrara is hopelessly confused and uncharitable, as Tony Flood has shown in his ongoing critique of the Ferrara book (and as I’ve shown in my own writing).  I would be willing to bet $1000 that you do not understand the “essentials” and “basic fundamental premises” of the Austrian School, which is why you find Ferrara persuasive.

When Ferrara says a thing — albiet it is usually a big thing, a big declaration or assertion — the thing that he says is not only clear and un-ambivalent, but it also corresponds to a more total picture of life, what we call reality, to the reality of things, to a reality that can be confirmed by history’s story about man and society, and above all to the reality of what man is. 

When Tom Woods says a thing, I hardly get the sense that the thing said is even a thing, but rather a fog of minutiae and manifold particularity and unrepresentative examples which only manage to leave one where one started off, hungering for the truth of things: what is man? what is he for? where is he going?

It’s true, I may never read and know all there is to know about the Austro-Libertarian school, but I know the essentials and basic fundamental premises of the school enough to know that I do not want or need to know any more about the particularities of its functioning.

William James said that wisdom is knowing what to overlook.