SHOE Archives

Societies for the History of Economics

SHOE@YORKU.CA

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Condense Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Mime-Version:
1.0
Sender:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
Mason Gaffney <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:25:11 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Reply-To:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (41 lines)
Pat Gunning writes:

I wrote
nothing that even implies anti-statism. Snip.

.. government
funding of universities and bureaucracy leads to standard setting and
teaching that is in the interests of the bureaucrats.

Snip
Government funding over any length of time always leads to
bureaucracy snip

  Legislators
..
tend to favor more spending on just about everything. Snip

By interlarding your prose with such shibboleths of anti-statism you do
create an impression of being James Buchanan.
However, you are the expert on what you are, so if you will say you are
pro-statist, or even neutral, I will have to believe you, and just comment
that I find your prose see-sawing and digressive.

Pat goes on:

  people in business tend to
earn more than those in other fields, snip

Mason here: "business" needs defining; so does the word "earn". Some
businesses and incomes are productive; some are predatory.  Some are
resource-using; some are labor-intensive. Some are honest; some are not. The
fortune that endowed Brown U, for example, came from slave-trading. Many
fortunes came from lobbying and bribing for land grants during "the great
barbecue". To conflate returns to honest labor with what Carver called
"findings and stealings" is to slip in a basic confusion that is central to
much anti-statist oratory.

However, I'd welcome any clarification of your position.

Mason Gaffney

ATOM RSS1 RSS2