Comments on: Winston and Coolidge on the Bailout

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:52:18 +0000

Actually (sorry to be responding so late…better late than never, I guess!) the fact that a bunch of progressive, left-leaning historians savaged Silver's book only rather proves Silver's point.

Yes, I know well that a defense of natural rights is not going to impress Will- because I've already been through this before, years ago, on this very blog. Actually, my mentioning of Coolidge's staunch defense of the natural rights understanding of the Constitutional framework was actually meant as a sort of tongue in cheek statement meant to perhaps cause Will a bit of cog diss., since he seems to think that anyone defending natural rights is a rube (and if Coolidge isn't a rube for Will, this then means that Will's notion of morality is historicist. I'm not saying historicism is “wrong” per se…I do actually happen to think it a way of thinking about morality [even if Will doesn't call it by the name historicis] that's far deeper than, say, standard issue positivism).

By: Robert Light

Robert Light — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:52:18 +0000

Actually (sorry to be responding so late…better late than never, I guess!) the fact that a bunch of progressive, left-leaning historians savaged Silver's book only rather proves Silver's point.

By: Scott Wood

Scott Wood — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:04:23 +0000

gb:

you might want to try reading some Adam Smith before asserting that economics is the epitome of bureaucratic command and control.

By: gb

gb — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:43:36 +0000

i dont quite get you libertarians. i'm totally with you whenit comes to fighting for freedom but the ugly truth is that the banking and financial sectors are themselves, the whole discipline of economics with charts and data, is THE ABSOLUTE EPITOME of bureaucratic command and control, of mindless paper trails, and a bunch of middle-class stiffs in business suits whose job it is to serve The Man.

isnt freedom about about something else?

By: Curious

Curious — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:49:32 +0000

So, we should take government down again to less than 10% of GDP, spend more at the state level than the federal, and thereby restore the liberties lost in the New Deal and the wartime expansion of taxation?

Granted, it's dubious there was anything sick about the chickens Schechter was selling, and that it was any business of the federal government to curb their sale. But was it similarly a denial of liberty to ensure that people can retire in their 60s? If the 22 year old whose gall bladder became infected because she put off seeing a doctor was covered by insurance, would that deny her liberty?

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:53:26 +0000

Steve,

Wilkinsonian position on deficits, here:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/200...

I much prefer Hamilton's capitalism over Jefferson's agrarianism, and I think he did an excellent job establishing the solidity of American credit. His attempts at early industrial policy were poorly thought out and corrupt. But, again, there is nothing more corrupt than an entire economy based on slave labor. Hamilton's record in this regard -- the most morally fundamentally issue in American history -- is not without taint, but he was relatively very progressive in his advocacy for abolition.

I was supposed to review Chernow's Hamilton bio for Reason, but I never turned it in because I could never decide what I really thought about him. In my estimation, he's a lot better than Jefferson, and a good bit worse than G. Morris, who had similar politics.

By: Steve M.

Steve M. — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:34:52 +0000

This video brings on several questions — not necessarily related to its contents. What is the Wilkinsonian position on (1) deficits and (2) Alexander Hamilton. You campaign against Thomas Jefferson is well known and long established. But I hear suspiciously little ranting about Hamilton.

By: Robert S. Porter

Robert S. Porter — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:37:13 +0000

Silver's book was savaged pretty badly by historians. Coolridge might have been good, but Silver didn't prove it. It seems the reason most libertarians latch on to Coolridge is because he didn't do anything. The question should then be, did Coolridge actively attempt to right the wrongs, or did he just not accomplish anything.

Also, I'm not sure that a defense of natural rights is going to impress Will.

By: Robert Light

Robert Light — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:21:58 +0000

You should read Coolidge vs. the Historians by Tom Silver*. What's admirable about Coolidge finds its source in the fact that he took the Founding, the Declaration, and natural rights seriously.

* http://www.claremont.org/publications/precepts/...

By: Cool Cal

Cool Cal — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:02:21 +0000

I had the wonderful opportunity to quote the man in context to my mother the other day. I posed the hypothetical that one of the few upsides to a McCain presidency would be gridlock, which I explained to her. She responded in a tizzy, “Why would that be a GOOD thing? We need new laws to be passed! That's the business of America!”
“No Mom, the business of America … is BUSINESS!!!” (I think I'm paraphrasing, but still as sweet)