Abstract: Interpretation of macroeconomic events in the 1930s and 1940s is complicated by the era’s institutional peculiarities, especially the massive work-relief programs during the Depression and the displacement of market-based pricing and resource allocation during the war. These difficulties can be avoided to some extent by examining hours worked, rather than such standard indicators as estimated real GDP and the rate of unemployment.

From such an examination, we may conclude that (1) the depression had a flat trough in 1932, 1933, and 1934; (2) civilian government hours accounted for three-eighths of the increase in total hours worked between 1932 and 1936; (3) as late as 1939, private nonfarm hours were 16 percent below their 1929 level and 21 percent below the trend high-employment level for 1939; (4) the tremendous mismatch between the increase in private hours worked and the estimated increase in real GDP from 1940 to 1944 calls into serious question the accuracy of the estimated increase in real output; and (5) substitution of lower-productivity workers for the higher-productivity workers being drained into the armed forces from 1940 to 1944 only adds to doubts about the reality of the estimated increase in real output during that period.

Download Paper: “A Revealing Window on the U.S. Economy in Depression and War: Hours Worked, 1929–1950”

Abstract: The libertarian-individualist cause is at a critical crossroads. To have a successful revolution in the minds of men, we must learn from the Leninists what “revolutionaries” can do to advance their principles: nourish and increase the hard core with an “open center” and support specific political actions through auxiliary organizations, while avoiding “left-wing opportunism” and “right-wing sectarianism.” Historically, it was from the post-war libertarian outposts that FEE was able to build and galvanize such a hard core open center, with members even radicalizing one another. But FEE attempted to be more populist than scholarly, driving away scholars once they had “graduated.” The Volker Fund filled this gap to some extent; but has started to go the way of the Earheart foundation’s efforts—since the scholars selected were not radical enough to maintain an open center, the hard core has been weakening and dissolving. The libertarian cause should de-emphasize drastically popular fronts with the conservative right, it should nourish and construct the hardcore libertarian movement with some form or forms of nucleus or center, and it must emphasize libertarian scholars and intellectuals primarily.

Download Paper: “Rothbard’s Confidential Memorandum to the Volker Fund, ‘What Is To Be Done?'”

Abstract: This memorandum was written at the request of Henry Hazlitt to provide Mises’s comments on and concerns about F.A. Hayek’s initial proposals for what became the Mont Pèlerin Society. Mises stresses that those who favor liberty and freedom and oppose totalitarianism must also oppose interventionism. The memo argues that those who fought and lost against the rising tide of totalitarianism at the turn of the 20th Century lost their battles because they settled for middle-of-the-road policies that conceded considerable ground to the socialists. The weak point in Professor Hayek’s plan is that it relies upon the cooperation of many men who are today’s middle-of-the-roaders. As interventionists, they may not be the hoped-for intellectual pioneers to inspire people to build a freer world.

Download Paper: “Observations on Professor Hayek’s Plan”

Abstract: It is widely thought that Robert Nozick’s views on rectification of past injustices  are of critical importance to his theory of distributive justice, even perhaps justifying wholesale redistributive taxes in the present because of the undoubted injustices that have pervaded much past history. This essay undertakes to correct this impression—not mostly by disagreeing with Nozick’s claims, but nevertheless proceeding on basic libertarian theory. Of enormous importance is the role of putative innocents, who are defrauded by miscreants carefully covering their tracks so that these recipients have no reason to think they are buying stolen property. But of equal importance is simply that the duty to rectify past injustices is not comparable to the original duty to respect property rights in the first place.

Download Paper: “Present Payments, Past Wrongs: Correcting Loose Talk about Nozick and Rectification”