Tirzah

The first poem at The Freeman is Frederick Turner's Tirzah. It seems The Freeman is certainly starting off strong with this experiment in publishing poetry. If they continue to publish such strong works, that is certainly a good thing. This poem is poetry first and foremost. This shows the people at The Freeman are serious about changing the culture, which is what is truly necessary to get classical liberalism accepted by the general public.

Poetry at The Freeman

The Freeman is now publishing poetry. If you are a libertarian poet, this is a great publishing opportunity. And, like good capitalists, The Freeman will even pay you for your poem!

Experimental Economics and Literature

Experimental economics meets Molière's Tartuffe. Let the Stag Hunt begin!

Shakespeare: Business, Hording, Taxes, and Usury

Just when you thought there could not be more about Shakespeare, scholars are now focused on the evidence that he was a shrewd businessman. Not just in regards to his theater, but also in regards to grain. And though I don't know if he was a borrower, it turned how that he was a lender.

So we have Shakespeare the teacher, Shakespeare the actor, Shakespeare the poet, Shakespeare the businessman, and Shakespeare the lender.

How much this "new" information is being brought forth in order to try to bring Shakespeare down a few pegs, it's hard to tell. The assumption by most scholars is that market activity is morally degrading. If Shakespeare was (horror of horrors) not just a businessman, but a horder, a tax evader, and a lender at interest, how can we revere him?

It seems to me that this is prime fodder for literary scholars influenced by Austrian economics. We can use this information to see just how informed Shakespeare was in regards to business. And the reason Shakespeare was hording grain was, no doubt, because of the famines caused by the Little Ice Age. This would suggest, rather, Shakespeare was as wise in business as he was in his poetry. But that is the argument which needs to be made. Further, we can ask, too, if we see these elements in Shakespeare's works, and what they mean in that light. This is culture as spontaneous order influencing the contents of Shakespeare. This is what the Austrian school of economics can bring to bear.

Foucault, Hayek, Goethe

While doing research on the influence of literature on scientists' creativity, I ran across Nicholas Vazsonyi's Searching for "The Order of Things": Does Goethe's Faust II Suffer from the "Fatal Conceit"? in Monatshefte, Vol. 88, No. 1, 1996. Yes, that is Foucault, Hayek, and Goethe. And the piece comes full circle, beginning and ending with a discussion of chaos theory. How many hidden gems of Austrian Economics and Literature -- early work in the field -- are out there?

On the Business of Literature

Here is an excellent piece on the business of literature.

How will the internet change things? You can now self-publish for free with Amazon -- and your work will be available on Kindle. In fact, I decided to try it with my play Sandy Keenan. What new kinds of filters will emerge? Blogs? Word of mouth? Dedicated online reviewers?

Population Genetics Methodology and the Evolution of Spontaneous Orders -- Iliad Edition

Spontaneous orders change over time -- but slowly, and always in relation to the tradition out of which the orders in question emerged. Language is such a spontaneous order. Our languages change over time, but not radically so. They change with use. And they change and spread in a way very similar to how DNA mutations change and spread.

Thus, it should not be surprising to learn that one can use the same tools geneticists use for population genetics to determine the age of works such as The Iliad.Using this technique, it was discovered that "in 762 B.C., give or take 50 years," a date that matches much current scholarship. I can already hear the naysayers arguing that if scholarship was right, what do we need this scientific method for? Well, not every text is as well established as is The Iliad, meaning it can be used to both more accurately date a variety of texts as well as help us to learn more about the evolution of language itself.

Given the fact that this method works for both genes and language, perhaps it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that his method might also work to help us understand change in other spontaneous orders as well.

Usury, Dante, Time

I am currently reading Dante's "The Divine Comedy," and one of the groups of people punished in Hell is, of course, the usurers. For Medieval Christians and modern Muslims (among each other), usury was a sin. But why?

Dante suggests:

"Philosophy makes plain by many reasons," 

he answered me, "to those who heed her teachings,
how all of nature,---her laws, her fruits, her seasons,---

springs from the Ultimate Intellect and Its art:
and if you read your Physics with due care,
you will note, not many pages from the start,

that Art strives after her by imitation,
as the disciple imitates the master;
Art, as it were, is the Grandchild of Creation.

By this, recalling the Old Testament
near the beginning of Genesis, you will see
that in the will of Providence, man was meant

to labor and to prosper. But usurers,
by seeking their increase in other ways,
scorn Nature in herself and her followers. (John Chiardi, tr.)

The author of the Physics is, of course, Aristotle. And Art for Plato and Aristotle was poiesis, which was a "making" or "doing." The maker learns what to make by apprenticing to a master. God, being the ultimate creator, is the ultimate master. He created the universe, and we imitate God.

But we cannot imitate God in one thing: making something out of nothing. At the time, people considered usury to be the creation of something (more money) out of nothing (mere lending). Of course, what a lender does in charging interest is charge for time. Thus, the usurer creates time for others.

But if we consider the fact that in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition God is the creator of time, where does that put the usurer? Is he not equally imitating God in making time for people? He cannot create it literally -- but he can, through lending, make time. And do we not deserve to get paid for what we make?

With a proper understanding of what it is usury does, we can see that the usurer is in fact a maker, just like the maker of physical objects. Thus, we can finally lead the usurers out of Hell.

Caplan on Tolstoy on Lying

Bryan Caplan reflects on lying and trust in light of Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych. It has been a while since I read the story, but I remember liking it a great deal.

Caplan raises the issues of lying and trust. Specifically, in believing a lie or an untruth. Ivan Ilych is dying, but everyone tells him he's not. Are they doing it to be kind? Ivan thinks it unkind. They could be sympathizing with him more if they weren't lying to him and themselves about his condition. Everyone could say their goodbyes. But more, this lying undermines trust, and trust is a vital element for a society's well-being.  Of course, one has to have the right institutions in place to promote trust. 

Paul Cantor on South Park

Paul Cantor on South Park.

Ever wonder why egalitarians tend to lose their sense of humor? "To laugh at people is to feel superior to them." In other words, humor is anti-egalitarian. More, it is outright judgmental.

Cantor also sums up the difference between economic exchange and poltical exchange quite concisely:

"Politics is a zero-sum, winner-take-all game in which one business triumphs only by using government power to eliminate a rival; but in the voluntary exchanges that a free market makes possible, all parties benefit from a transaction."

Cantor does a great job of demonstrating how good literary analysis should be done.