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[Posted on behalf of Bruce Caldwell. - RBE] 
 
This is in regard to Roy Weintraub's comment on Greg Ransom's post. I have to say that I
did not understand what Greg Ransom meant by his post, but whatever he meant, I can
understand still less why it has provoked Roy to attack both Greg and the Hayek list-serve
so vehemently (Roy's post follows mine).
 
For the record, the Hayek list-serve is a scholarly list-serve. I have participated on a
number of these over the years (P-K, HES, feminist, early Austrian lists) and it is, in my
opinion, one of the best (I think it is the best, but then my research is on Hayek). Over
the past couple of years there have been virtual seminars on books by David Laidler, Steve
Horwitz, Roger Garrison, and Peter Boettke, and on papers by philosophers Ed Feser and
Barry Smith. I have found these to be extremely useful, but so have been the everyday
posts on various scholarly issues.  Greg does a superb job monitoring the list - usually
by sending a copy of the "list rules" out whenever someone looks like they are going to
flame or the subject gets too far away from scholarly concerns. One cannot prevent non-
scholarly types from subscribing to lists, nor can a "list" somehow be held be responsible
for the actions of all who might subscribe to it. Roy's post, with its reference to
threats by unnamed people to authors and editors (were they physical threats, threats of
libel, threats to stop subscribing, or what?) and to book-burning might lead someone who
is unfamiliar with the Hayek list to think that its purpose is principally to promote
propaganda (or worse), and such an impression would certainly be wrong.
 
I will further point out that in the last year articles have been written that have
accused Hayek of being both an anti-Semite and a eugenicist. In my opinion, the evidence
for such charges ranges from the flimsy to the non-existent. The articles in which these
charges appear show none of the nuance that Hacohen's book on Popper reveals, indeed just
the opposite. Perhaps especially in these PC times, such charges quickly take on the aura
of truth, and can be used to simply dismiss out of hand a thinker's ideas. I don't think
that Roy's charges of the book-burning mentality of those on the Hayek list add much to
the conversation.
 
Bruce Caldwell 
 
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