Introduction below the fold,

The Mises Institute has finally published the long-awaited new edition of Richard Cantillon’s Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce en Général (Essay on Economic Theory).[1] Finished sometime between 1730 and 1734, Essai was only finally published in French many years after his death.[2] It was not published and distributed in English until 1932, translated by Henry Higgs’s from the original French edition.[3] For some reason, perhaps related to Cantillon’s death in 1734, the posthumous publication of the Essai, or the lack of a widely distributed English edition, the Essai remained generally unknown until its “rediscovery” by William Stanley Jevons in the late 19^th Century.[4]

Essai’s broad scope as a general inquiry into economic theory sets it apart from the various other manuscripts published around that era by a web of independent and unrelated theorists now known collectively as the pamphleteers.[5] Not only was Essai quite possibly the first complete foray into economics, but it exerted an impressive amount of influence on the early development of modern economic thought.  Indeed, Cantillon’s Essai influenced Adam Smith, many of the Physiocrats, Turgot and Jean-Baptiste Say.[6] Essai’s coherency and scope, along with its influence on early classical economists, led Jevons to dub it the “cradle of political economy”.[7]

Essai’s lapse into obscurity seems an unjust fate when considering the fact that Cantillon’s treatise is one of the few referenced in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.[8] This fact is all the more impressive knowing how scantly Smith tended to cite those he borrowed from.[9] Ultimately, it may have been Wealth of Nation’s unparalleled success in revolutionizing and popularizing economic science which ultimately sealed Essai’s fate.[10] This is ironic, given that Adam Smith has been accused of basing much of Wealth of Nations on Cantillon’s Essai.[11] Smith’s Wealth of Nations, of course, soon became the premier treatise on political economy, becoming the principal influence for future development of economic thought up until the marginalist revolution of the late-19^th Century.

While Cantillon’s “re-discovery” at the hands of Jevons certainly served to provide Essai some historical recognition, including stimulating further historical investigation into Cantillon’s life and additional analysis of his theories, this stimulus unfortunately proved rather limited.  Furthermore, despite emerging criticism of Adam Smith during the mid-20^th Century,[12] Wealth of Nations continues to be revered as the foundation of the study of political economy.  As such, even to this day, Cantillon’s Essai does not receive the attention it deserves.  Even more tragically, Essai continues to be ignored by some in the Austrian community[13] — this despite recent Austrian scholarship highlighting the genius and insightfulness of Cantillon’s analysis, especially as compared to that of Adam Smith, and even labeling Cantillon as a proto-Austrian.[14]

Revisiting the theories of Richard Cantillon is useful not only for setting today’s history of economic thought straight, but also as a means of isolating sound economic theory from fallacy.  If we accept that the development of theory is the product of an accumulation of knowledge, or a progressive growth in the pool of knowledge,[15] it necessarily follows that all present theory is in some way based on older knowledge which has been accumulated and assimilated and developed upon.  It is therefore useful to rigorously test past concepts through the use of logic, distinguishing logically valid from invalid theory.  Revealing the fallacious logic behind a particular theoretical conjecture can therefore test the soundness of all theory reliant on its validity.

The present essay sets out to underscore the importance of Richard Cantillon for modern economics.  Cantillon is the rightful father of modern political economy, and as such his contributions should initially hold as much weight as those of any other economist of that era, including Adam Smith.[16] More important, however, the major differences between Cantillon’s and Smith’s theory should be studied under greater scrutiny — the validity of either man’s theories should be reviewed.  Knowing that the classical school of economics, based nearly exclusively on the insight of Adam Smith, dominated the science of political economy for almost one hundred years, it is quite possible that much of today’s theory sits upon erroneous foundations.[17]

[2] Joseph J. Spengler (August 1954), “Richard Cantillon: First of the Moderns I.” The Journal of Political Economy, 62(4); p. 61.  Wrote Spengler, “Written between 1730 and 1734, the Essai was not published in entirety until 1755.  The English original must have gotten into the hands of Malachy Postlethwayt… the French translation of the Essai, reportedly by Cantillon himself, after supposedly remaining sixteen years in the hands of Marquis or Mirabeau, was restored to its rightful owner at the latter’s request; and from this manuscript, presumably, the Essai was printed in London in 1755.”

[3] Joseph Hone (April 1944), “Richard Cantillon, Economist: Biographical Note.” The Economic Journal, 54(213); p. 96.  In 1944, Hone wrote, “Richard Cantillon’s Essai Sur La Nature du Commerce en General was printed in full for the first time in English twelve years ago.”

[4] W. Stanley Jevons (1881), “Richard Cantillon and the Nationality of Political Economy.” Contemporary Review.

[5] On Essai’s s scope, see: Cantillon (2010), p. 15.  “Cantillon’s contributions span the entire gamut of economics including entrepreneurship, methodology, theory, microeconomics, macroeconomics, international trade and finance, economic policy, and even areas such as population theory, economic geography, and transport economics.  If you want to know the scientific “magic” of the market, here is the man who literally wrote the book.”  On the pamphleteers, see: Joseph A. Schumpeter (1954), History of Economic Analysis (Routledge); pp. 156–157.  Also, see: Murray Rothbard (1995), An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 1: Economic Thought Before Adam Smith (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute); 255–274.

[6] Friedrich Hayek (1991), The Trend of Economic Thinking (Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund); p. 246. Hayek described Essai’s scope and influence as such, “Here was a work that had exerted the very greatest influence on the initial stages of a science and that had given the first coherent survey of this new science, only to disappear completely from view for nearly a century, so that its purely accidental rediscovery was in the nature of a revelation.”

[7] Jevons (1881), p. 342.

[8] Adam Smith (2007), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Petersfield, Hampshire: Harriman House Ltd.); p. 45.  Here, Adam Smith cites Mr. Cantillon as the source of the notion that the “lowest species of common laborers” must earn twice the cost of their own maintenance.  Hayek notes that at the time of the writing of The Wealth of Nations there also circulated a manuscript by a Philip Cantillon.  Regarding Philip Cantillon as the possible “Mr. Cantillon” that Smith cites, Hayek wrote, “In this book [Philip Cantillon’s], however, there are to be found no discussions to which Smith could have been referring by the passage quoted [Smith (2007), p. 45].  On the other hand, French literature of the same period, particularly the writings of most of the physiocrats, shows that another work that had appeared anonymously in French was generally attributed by contemporaries to a “de Cantillon”—namely, the Essai sur la nature du commerce en general…”Hayek (1991), p. 248.

[9] Rothbard (1995), p. 435.  Rothbard, quite critically of Adam Smith, wrote, “The problem is that he originated nothing that was true, and that whatever he originated was wrong; that, even in an age that had fewer citations or footnotes than our own, Adam Smith was a shameless plagiarist, acknowledging little or nothing and stealing large chunks, for example, from Cantillon.”

[10] Ibid., p. 502.  “The most unfortunate aspect of the total Smithian takeover in economics was not so much his own considerable tissue of error, but even more the blotting out of knowledge of the rich tradition of economic thought that had developed before Smith.”

[11] Rothbard (1995), p. 435; see also: n. 9.

[12] Schumpeter (1954), p. 179.  Referring to Adam Smith and Wealth of Nations, Schumpeter wrote, “But no matter what he actually learned or failed to learn from predecessors, the fact is that the Wealth of Nations does not contain a single analytic idea, principle, or method that was entirely new in 1776.”  Rothbard’s criticism (Rothbard 1995, pp. 435–471) is even more critical than Schumpeter’s.

[13] George Reisman, Capitalism (Laguna Hills, California: TJS Books); pp. 1–6.  Reisman’s — one of today’s foremost Misesian scholars — Capitalism is completely devoid of mention of Richard Cantillon and his contributions to economic science.

[14] Jörg Guido Hülsmann (2001), “More on Cantillon as a Proto-Austrian”.  Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, 11(4), pp. 693–703.  Building on Rothbard’s belief of Cantillon as the true father of modern economics, Hülsmann goes on to suggest, “Cantillon’s Essai sur la nature du commerce en général anticipated even more teachings of modern Austrian economics than Rothbard’s analysis suggests.”

[15] George Reisman (1990), Capitalism: A Complete and Integrated Understanding of the Nature and Value of Human Economic Life (Laguna Hills, California: TSJ Books); p. 65.  “In this process, advances… in knowledge… themselves set the state for further advances in knowledge… thereby operating to give man… ever greater understanding.  For example, learning arithmetic sets the stage for learning algebra, while in turn sets the stage for learning calculus, and so on.”

[16] While Richard Cantillon may have been the father of modern economics, the roots of economic science were firmly developed by the Spanish Scholastics of the 16^th and early-17^th Centuries.  These also deserve careful attention.  See: Rothbard (1995), pp. 99–133; Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson (2009), The School of Salamanca (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute); Llewellyn H.  Rockwell Jr. (October 2009), “The World of Salamanca”.

[17] Rothbard (1995), p. 502.  Discussing Smith’s conquest of economics and the disregarding of Cantillon’s economics, Rothbard asserts, “…the Austrians and their nineteenth century predecessors, largely deprived of knowledge of the pre-Smith tradition, were in many ways forced to reinvent the wheel, to painfully claw their way back to the knowledge that many pre-Smithians had enjoyed long before.”  An example of such is the prominence of Smith’s primitive labor theory of value (distinctive from and more primitive than the later Marxist version), which was later corrected by the marginalists of the late-19^th Century who developed the subjective theory of value and the concept of diminishing marginal returns (see: Reisman 1990, pp. 2–4).

Nonetheless, Laporta’s management of the sports sections of the club, especially the basketball section, has been controversial. On June 2, 2005, he faced the resignation of five members of the club’s board of directors including Sandro Rosell. They accused him of having changed for the worse as a person, having adopted authoritarian traits and harbouring ambitions of power.

On October 2005, he faced a new scandal, when his brother-in-law and member of the board of directors in charge of security, Alejandro Echevarría, was revealed to be a member of the Francisco Franco Foundation. After several denials by Echevarría and Laporta, contested by documents shown by a former member of the board of directors, Laporta was finally forced to accept Echevarría’s resignation. Echevarría is still, however, close to the club and he organized the security during the celebrations of the 2005-2006 Liga championship.

Laporta’s own political history added to the complications surrounding the Echevarría scandal, as his politics are diametrically opposed to those implied by Echevarría’s membership of the Francisco Franco Foundation. Laporta is a self-described Catalan nationalist and has been identified on several occasions as supporting the independence of Catalonia from Spain.

I think the recent rejection of Francisco Franco and the Spanish-right has led to an overly joyous acceptance of the Marxist-lite politics of PSOE, and by extension the politics of PSOE’s recent allies — the regional nationalist parties.  Furthermore, it has implied some great difference between the politics of these different regimes.

There is no diametrical opposition to the politics of Franco’s fascism and PSOE’s ideal socialism, nor between any of these two and the nationalists.  They may have different specific goals (i.e. unity of Spain versus independence), but their methods of reaching these goals are the same (although, yes, the existence of democracy in Spain has limited somewhat the damage PSOE can do and has limited how they can go about their business).

In other words, just because Laporta is opposed to Franco it doesn’t mean he is opposed to authoritarianism.  It only means that instead of Spanish-wide authoritarianism, Laporta prefers Catalán-wide authoritarianism.  In any case, I would argue that the only reason Laporta supports Catalán independence is because he knows he has no hope in Spanish politics (and therefore no interest in pursuing a “constitunationalist” agenda) and because appealing to Catalán independence makes him popular locally.

My point is that people should approach these nationalist parties objectively, even if they believe in independence.  By achieving independence from Spain through these nationalist parties, and leaders like Laporta, these regions may condemn themselves to tyranny.

For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, near the worst of the recession in March 2009, 3.9 million people were hired and 4.7 million were separated from jobs. This net loss of 800,000 jobs in one month indicates a very weak economy—but nevertheless one in which 3.9 million people were hired. A program that reduced incentives for people to search for and accept jobs could surely matter a lot here.

Barro’s argument can be illustrated with the following graph (note, the lines aren’t perfect: “best offer” should start to level off, representing an asymptote).

The point at which an individual chooses a job is when the job offer meets or exceeds his reservation wage (or minimum accepted wage).  The longer an individual remains unemployed, the more his reservation wage falls (due to several reasons, including desperation, erosion of savings, et cetera), but also the higher the chances of finding a higher-paying job (in the real-world this relationship is obviously not linear, but the graph represents a very rough trend).

Barro’s argument is basically that unemployment insurance can affect the individual’s reservation wage by shifting it to the right (represented above by the dotted line).  It will allow the individual to remain unemployed for a longer amount of time, because he won’t be as desperate to find a job.

While I would usually agree with Barro, I don’t think his argument applies to the present economy.  He alludes to why,

For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, near the worst of the recession in March 2009, 3.9 million people were hired and 4.7 million were separated from jobs. This net loss of 800,000 jobs in one month indicates a very weak economy—but nevertheless one in which 3.9 million people were hired.

All good here.  But then he follows with this,

A program that reduced incentives for people to search for and accept jobs could surely matter a lot here.

This is a non-sequitur.  If there are no jobs available for people to accept, then no matter how willing an individual is to work, he still will not be able to work.  Thus, in a stagnant economy, the problem seems to have more to do with a lack of productivity, rather than unemployment benefits.

I am not saying that I support extending unemployment benefits, rather I am saying that they are not a major impact on the current job market.

One could, of course, argue that higher unemployment benefits may affect entrepreneur’s willingness to invest and produce, but first of all these unemployment benefits are probably being paid for through deficit spending, and second of all if they weren’t the impact of extended unemployment benefits on the redistributive network wouldn’t be big enough to dissuade entrepreneurs from investing.

On the other hand, unemployment benefits may be have kept the unemployment rate at 9.5% rather than 10%+, if only because those who are genuinely no longer interested in looking for work no longer form part of the labor force (they are not included in U3, only in U6).  But, this has nothing to do with the availability of jobs.

The problem is that this new “custom” technology requires a second machine.  The doctor who I spoke to yesterday said that the machine was another “half a million dollars”  (I’m not sure if that’s the real cost).  While I am sure that the cost of this second machine does affect prices to some degree, it’s also true that comparatively speaking the cost of the actual custom operation is only marginally higher than that of the standard operation, if you do not include the original cost of the machine.  In other words, my point is that now that the machine has been purchased, it probably doesn’t save much money to commit to the standard operation (the machine will have been bought regardless).

So, I am hoping I can find something between $3,000 and $3,500.

In any case, I was talking to my dad about health care (him being a bleeding heart liberal), and I suggested that the distribution of these LASIK machines much be incredibly limited by the government.  Only certain, accredited ophthalmologists can probably purchase the machines needed to conduct the surgery.

Talking to doctors so far, it doesn’t seem as much effort is put into the operation by the doctor himself.  I am sure that medical knowledge is necessary, but it doesn’t seem as if eight years of medical schooling is.  In the standard operation, the cutting of the flap is manual, and so obviously you want someone who knows what he is doing, but training for this is probably relatively short (doctors don’t spend eight years in medical school learning how to operate a blade to cut the eye’s flap open).

I think that if we had a true free market in health care, other things aside, not only would the cost of these machines go down, but the cost of the operation would go down.  Indeed, I am absolutely certain that if there was a free market in health care, we would see lasik eye surgery being conducted in places like Walmart.  We would literally see eye surgery factories, where clinics would process dozens of people per day (instead of six or seven).  I am convinced that the price of the surgery would be measured in the hundreds of dollars, and would steadily go down.

Surprisingly, my dad agreed with me.

Here is my response,

Mr. ______,

I think the article exaggerates and confuses the libertarian (caveat: not all libertarians agree, of course) position on the relationship between the United States and Islam, and especially confuses the libertarian criticism of the protestation of the Mosque “at” Ground Zero (and, when I say “at”, I mean nearby, in a neighborhood that also includes churches and at least one synagogue, and so it’s not as if it’s completely arbitrary).

Take the following,

They defend Islam while trashing America as the violent oppressor of Muslims, the Middle East, and freedom.

Who defends Islam?  I don’t think libertarians defend Islam, over other religions or ideologies (except, of course, for the usual bias towards one’s own religion or lack of).  Rather, it’s more accurate to portray the libertarian position as one which opposes American involvement, other than that which has to do with commerce in the broadest sense of the word (government-free commerce, perhaps would be more accurate), in the Middle East.  Furthermore, we defend the right to private property and, by extension, freedom of religion—which, by the way, Americans tend to tout as their own (and so, in a sense, we are defending the United States, not Islam, per sé).

Furthermore,

For example, libertarian columnist Jack Hunter, aka the Southern Avenger, has a Youtube video up at Daily Paul agreeing with Rauf’s remarks that “the United States has killed more innocent Muslims than al Qaeda has killed Americans.”

Would you claim otherwise?

In any case, this seems a tangential point and it strikes me as taking Jack Hunter’s comments out of context (I admit to not watching Mr. Hunter’s Youtube video, however).  I don’t think Mr. Hunter would defend the slaughter of thousands of innocent people on 9/11.  Instead, Mr. Hunter would suggest that that does not justify the slaughter tens of thousands of Middle Easterners.

Furthermore, would you deny that 9/11 was the product of prior relationships between Osama bin Laden and the United States?  Would you deny that the 9/11 attacks, in some way, were provoked?  I don’t think you can deny any of that.  Now, we all agree (except maybe Imam Rauf—I can’t speak for him) that this fact does not justify terrorism.  But, it’s not useful to deny that the terrorism was provoked.

A roughly similar case would be that of the United States, with the caveat that I will concede that the circumstances were different (and so, I don’t mean to apply morality).  First, did U.S. economic aggression against Japan and covert military aggression against Germany (through lend-lease, Atlantic patrols, et cetera) provoke the Japanese attack on U.S. assets in the Pacific Ocean (note: provoke, not justify)?  Did, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor provoke the U.S.’s war of destruction wrought on the Axis Powers?

This is a moral free exercise in both cases: we are talking about provocation.

As a side note,

Hunter and Paul’s views are typical libertarian ideology that is more in line with leftists than authentic conservatives protesting Islamic conquer.

Thank goodness, because the conservative position is obviously one of denial.  And, yes, I agree that libertarians are not “authentic conservatives”.  Indeed, that is why we call ourselves libertarian, and not conservatives.

Is the libertarian position regarding Islam and the United States “leftist”?  If that means that the progressive-left position is similar to ours: yes and no.  I think that the progressive-left offers Muslim-Americans prioritization over other Americans, for the sake of political correctness (when talking about Muslim rights in the United States).  This is not the libertarian position.  The libertarians hold Muslims equal to others, and this includes rights to property.

I hope this clarifies the libertarian position.

Sincerely,

Jonathan M. Finegold Catalán

This is the second lecture I’ve given on the book, and while the first one went rather well (well, at least I think so), this was absolutely horrible.  Despite asking everyone to avoid debate until after I finished my presentation, the lecture was consistently interrupted.  For the most part, these interruptions consisted of people criticizing Reisman for not taking into account certain “caveats”, and at the same time completely missing Reisman’s point.

For example, Reisman critiques the argument that the threats presented by nuclear waste make nuclear technology undesirable.  The argument refers to the dumping of nuclear waste in dumps in the desert, because the radioactivity effectively ruins whatever parcel of land it’s dumped in.  Reisman, in turn, suggests that this is untrue.  The desert is used to dump nuclear waste because the opportunity cost isn’t high enough to dissuade entrepreneurs from doing so.  Reisman is using nuclear waste disposal as an example to show that the value of land is decided by the individual who owns it, and therefore the dumping of nuclear waste does not represent a “waste” of that land.  It is a purely economic argument.  If you want, you can exchange “nuclear waste” for “baby diapers”, or “sewage disposal”, or any other type of undesirable waste disposal.

Somehow, Reisman’s point got distorted, and a debate raged on whether or not nuclear power is cost-effective in a free-market (and, I admit, I fed the fire, because I didn’t make clear that that wasn’t Reisman’s point, and instead I defended the viability of nuclear power in a free-market [and I still do]).

In any case, the debate quickly degenerated into a monologue, as the specific person I was debating (a Misesian, by the way) monopolized the discussion.  Every time I attempted to bring up a counter-argument he shut me down, before I could finish my point, by claiming that I “had not read enough on the subject” (as if he knew how much I read).  Then, he would bring up ludicrous cases against nuclear technology, including,

1. A nuclear power plant in Detroit used coolant which was potentially explosive if it mixed with air (while true, I’m not sure how this within itself is all that relevant; we all know that entrepreneurs are looking forward to having their investments blow up, right?  My point is that we also have to look at the probability of the coolant system failing, or the consequence of an explosion in the coolant system—i.e. the consequences of an explosion in the power plant).
2. People in Detroit were being killed by uranium rods (which is a completely ambiguous claim—who was being speared?  Powerplant workers?)

Anyhow, I digress.  Ultimately, the discussion became so awkward that I couldn’t really formulate a point, because I was afraid that he would criticize some mundane detail in my argument (sorry, I can’t cover every possible detail, no matter how irrelevant or mundane to the general point).

In any case, the woman ended up leaving.  I’m sure that it had less to do with the style of the debate, and more to do with the fact that she just wasn’t interested in a bunch of libertarians debating amongst themselves (well, let’s be fair, it was hardly a debate; like I said, it was a monologue).  She did pose some good, albeit common, criticism, but I really couldn’t respond to her because this same individual consistently interrupted by response (I’m pretty sure I got through about two sentences).

I’m not sure what we were talking about after the “lecture”, but we got back on the topic of the previous debate and I was talking about environmentalism and whatnot.  I tell this guy that I actually was trying to present a counterpoint to the woman’s criticism.  This asshole has the gall to say that I had not presented a clear point since I first started showing up to the Mises meet-up.

This is me blowing off steam, by the way.

I guess I need to figure out how to properly deal with people like this guy.  My main weakness is probably wanting to defend every single part of the argument, even if it has nothing to do with what I originally said.  I suppose it would be more effective for me to simply “concede the point” for the sake of returning to my actual argument, but to a certain degree this whittles away at my reputation.

I am generally pretty good at being an asshole myself, but I guess to a certain degree I do see this guy as a knowledgeable person that I can learn from (he is much older than I am, and generally brings up good points—I am not saying the content of his argument is bad, I am criticizing his method of argumentation).  For that reason, maybe I have been holding back on how much of a dick I can be.  I am seriously reconsidering this position (and, I did to some degree in that debate, when I ridiculed his position on slavery).

From my experience in college, this is the method professors deal with upstart students (including myself), so maybe it is the best route to take.

For those with experience, what techniques do you employ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrVDViSlsSM

To me, there’s no other band like Led Zeppelin, whether at the time, before, or in the present.  Apart from the great composers (and I am not a fan of classical music, so I have no practical knowledge of their abilities), I am not sure there has been a single band to have as much accumulated genius as Led Zeppelin.  In fact, to me, Led Zeppelin has been the only true super band (super band status is normally issued to a band when all the members come together after achieving fame, but in Zeppelin’s case I confer super band status due to their ability as individuals), with exception of perhaps Rush (another band where all members have been amongst the best in their instrument).

Robert Plant, quite possibly, has the most beautiful, but almost most unique, voice in the history of the genre, with very developed lyrical capabilities.  He is considered the best vocalist in the history of rock by most mainstream music publications (like Rolling Stone).  Jimmy Page is definitely one of the best guitarists in the world, and to me he is in the top five (although, he doesn’t often make the top five in the same mainstream magazines).  There are few guitarists who matched his ability to make completely different sounds come off as harmonious, although this also has to do with the ability of the other band members.  John Paul Jones, well, is probably the most talented (and, unfortunately, least remembered) member of the band, capable of playing multiple instruments really, really well.  Finally, John Bonham was hands down the best drummer in the history of rock ‘n roll (Neil Peart and Ginger Banker follow closely), mostly because of his style:  he made it seem completely arbitrary, changing intensity throughout the song, but at the same time meticulously planned.

I spent much of the time listening to this song while feeling unfortunate about my inability to take in the song as a whole.  In other words, as I listen to a song I tend to only hear certain instruments at a time.  I tend to focus on one or two instruments, like the vocals, or the percussion, or the guitar.  To a large degree, this probably explains why I listened to this song for an entire hour—if you listen to a song replete with so much talent piece by piece, it will take a very long time to listen to all the pieces with equal attention.  Ultimately, I am not sure if my method of listening to music subtracts or adds to the song itself.  It seems to me that it could be the former, because I am sure that if I was able to listen to every different note of the song being hit simultaneously, the song would sound ten times as good (and, with that said, it’s hard to imagine what this song would sound like, when it’s already one of my favorites).

Finally, I love how Led Zeppelin was able to play with emotions, to some degree.  Many of their songs have a similar style of changing intensity.  These fluctuations are wide.  The song can be very slow for a short period of time, and suddenly, effortlessly, and perfectly change into fast-paced, hard rock.  Ultimately, I think it was the ability to pull off these wild transitions in classic rock that made it multiple times better than much of the rock which is recorded today (although, it is also true that it was the simplicity of modern rock which made it aesthetically pleasing and popular; i.e. compare The Clash or The Ramones to an older rock band).

Maybe it’s just me.

In the comments section, one commenter writes,

But one reason for the American people’s ready acceptance of a strong government and its perpetual wars is that we have become addicted to the easy money that war spawns.

First, there should be a distinction between “strong” and “big” government.  “Big” government is not necessarily a “strong” government, although it can be.  How strong a government is usually has to do with how docile its citizenry to the state’s rule, and this has to do with a variety of factors (including standards of living, which is why the American government has been comparatively stronger than many other governments throughout the world).

Second, I’m not sure the relationship between war, easy money, and eras of prosperity is as linear as this commenter believes.  Although, it is also noteworthy that except for the Second World War there was a thriving private sector working simultaneous to the war effort.  Even during the First World War, despite all the war rationing, the market as a whole was not as mobilized towards the war effort as it was during the Second World War.  Only the Second World War saw a dramatic fall in private consumption, and a massive fall in the size of private labor force.

Third, these wars have not necessitated huge increases in the supply of money.  Friedman and Schwartz suggest, for example, that only 5% of the cost of the First World War was paid through inflation (although, true, the Federal Reserve System was valuable in another way as well, and that was in providing the structure for allowing the massive loan network to finance the war).  The Second World War was probably the most expensive war fought by the United States, but the fact that there were massive deficits during those years goes to show that the government preferred to pay the war through debt rather than through inflation.  Since then, wars have been relatively “cheap”, although I believe that the percentage paid through inflation has steadily rose since the Second World War.  Nevertheless, these wars do not necessitate the amount of credit expansion necessary to launch an economic boom.

So, I would not equivocate growth of government and people’s acceptance of this growth with easy money.  Most wars, in fact, have occurred during periods of economic distress, not economic wealth.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgICVL0J6uA