Aschwin de Wolf has a nice post, The presumption of liberty, discussing de Jasay’s fascinating views on liberty and rights. “A recurrent theme in de Jasay’s oeuvre is that liberty should be presumed, not because we have a “right” to it, or because it is the most important value or goal, but because it follows from the requirements of epistemology and logic.” Well worth reading. (I addressed some of the themes Wolf touches on in my Book Review of Anthony de Jasay, Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy, and Order — e.g. my discussion of his “3 principles of politics”, starting on p. 89 of my essay.)
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/8870/anthony-de-jasay-on-the-presumption-of-liberty/
Anthony de Jasay on the Presumption of Liberty
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Thank you Stephen Kinsella, I had never heard of nor read anything by Anthony de Jasay.
I love the idea of patience as a requirement for subjectivism to manifest itself.
It is easy to see how Keynesian economics is exposed as short-run and therefore as bad economics when its essence is the opposite of patience – “We’re all dead in the long run.”
A true statement is “We’re all subjective in the long run!”
Anthony de Jasay, a cousin to Austrian econ like WH Hutt? Towering, that de Jasay. I agree that he would have been further enhanced by direct exposure to Austrian theory (or more than just the Wieser angle).
I wanted to comment earlier but, as I was reading your critique of de Jasay, I got caught up in the question of whether Mises was a utilitarian. This is part of the greatness of the content at Mises.org. You never know where it might lead you and it is always challenging and enriching. Your take on de Jasay will take a lot longer to finish then- and that is a good thing.
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