From the introduction of defending, the indefensible, by
Walter block the impetus for this book is libertarianism.
The basic premise of this philosophy is that it is
illegitimate to engage in aggression against non
aggressors. What is meant by aggression is
not assertiveness argumentativeness.
Competitiveness adventurousness, quarrelsome, nests or
antagonism. What is meant by aggression is
the use of violence such as that which takes place in Murder rape
robbery, or kidnapping libertarianism does not imply
pacifism. It does not forbid.
The use of violence in defense or even in retaliation against
violence. Libertarian philosophy condemns
only the initiation of violence, the use of violence against a
non-violent person or his property.
Dr. Block. Thank you for coming on the
libertarian Institute and keep my don't tread on anyone.
Where is the best place to find? A wide range of collection of
Publications. I guess Walter blog.com would
list. All of them are most of them.
I try to keep up, keep it up to date.
I don't always succeed, but that would be a good start.
Otherwise, just Google me. Sounds good today.
I wanted to talk about some of our heroes.
In the Freedom Movement. I want to start with page 2 of
your book defending the undefendable where you dedicate
this book to a number of people, please tell me the most
important contribution. You think this person is made to
the Freedom Movement or something.
You personally learn from them. You thought was really valuable
Nathaniel Branden. Well, Nathaniel Branden.
Pretty much converted me a little bit turn ism.
And, by the way, there are now three defending.
The undefendable is defending. The indefensible.
One, two, and three, three just came out, but I think you're
talking about defending the undependable one.
What happened was? I was a socialist, like, my
buddy. Bernie Sanders.
We went to high school together and My Views were roughly the
same as his and I'm ran, came. The Brooklyn College to speak
and I came to Boone his her, because everyone knew that fan
of prize was And we lead to starvation and we needed
government and I booed and hissed her and there was a big
group and then afterwards and someone said the iron ran
studies club that had invited her to Brooklyn College, was
having a luncheon. Her honor and anyone could come
even if you disagreed and I wanted to convert her to
socialism. So I went and there was this
long table. She was sitting at the head of
it and the Valium Brandon was next to her.
And then it peikoff and Alan Greenspan, and the senior
collector. Have they called it and I was
relegated to the other end of the table, the foot of the
table. And I turned to my neighbor.
I said, you know, this socialism is great, capitalism is evil.
They said, why don't really know that much about it, but the
people at the other end of the table, do So I went up there.
I was maybe 20 and Brandon was 35, ran maybe 50.
This must've been 1963, and I stuck my head in between ions
and Nathan's. And I said, there's a socialist
of wants the baits tomorrow socialism and capitalism.
And I said, who is it? And I said, me and Brandon was
very, very nice. He said, look, I'll there's no
room for you here at this end of the table.
I'll come to your end of the table and we'll talk about it on
two conditions. One.
You promised to read two books that I recommend, you, Atlas
Shrugged and economics in lesson, 1 Lesson by Henry
hazlitt and to you promise to keep this discussion going.
And so we settled it and you don't stop until we've achieved
agreement or we realize we can. So I read the books and I went
to his house and her house, and I was converted after all, four
or five sessions. I mean, Atlas Shrugged was
magnificent. It's my We're book.
I read it then and I read it every ten years since and
something the gold speech were trying to find boring.
But I love that book. It's my favorite novel and I use
it in my classes. And so Brandon meant a lot to
me. He converted me to limited
government limits journalism. And what was it about economics
in one lesson, Atlas Shrugged and your conversations with
random Brandon. What was The switching point for
you to take you from socialism to libertarian menarche ISM.
I think it was there were a lot of things that lestrade was
inspirational. One thing that sticks out in my
mind was in capitalism. If you do a good job, you make
profits. You can expand your base of
operation. And if you do a poor job, you
lose money. And you have to go do something
else. Whereas in government.
You don't have that or Medic feedback mechanism, which
rewards doing good and penalizes doing bad.
So the market was more efficient and also more moral.
Because in the market, it's voluntary trade, you bought that
gray shirt for 10 bucks and it was a voluntary interaction.
Whereas your relationship, the government is not a voluntary
one, you pay taxes, whether you like it or not.
And if you don't, you know, they'll be repercussions.
Turns against you, another person, you mentioned in your
introduction. Was Ian Rand.
Is there anything else from Ein rand's?
The Fountainhead of Atlas Shrugged that really stuck out
to you? Well, Atlas Shrugged, I mean, I
don't know. I get tongue-tied when I think
about that book. It is my favorite novel and a
lot of people criticize it. They say it's too.
I don't know what unrealistic or something like that but it
really struck. Accorded me.
I found it very realistic, you know, the bad guys, when they
would have a meeting as the, you know, how to screw up the
economy. It was just so true.
And I mean, she comes from Russia.
She is English is a second language.
And yet, the vernacular and the, the way of speaking, it was just
dead on and it was just inspirational.
I mean, I've read all of her books, all of her novels.
I I read a lot of her nonfiction as well.
And I agree with virtually all of it.
Not all of it, you know, because she's a miniature kiss or
limited government libertarian. She rejected the phrase
libertarian and she called herself, an objectivist.
She dismissed us Libertarians is hippies of the right, but, you
know, I still have a soft spot in my heart for Ian ran because
she and Brandon converted me to it and I consider a libertarian.
On by that, I mean to compliment her and, you know, that the
economics was all that grabbed me how metaphysics and
epistemology and all that other stuff as Aesthetics.
It never really grabbed me. And also she was a little bit
cultish. As was Brandon, you know, I was
at the NBI Nathaniel Branden Institute lectures, and if
somebody in the audience would ask a question on page, 44 Miss
Rand. You said this, could you Were
80. That would be a good question.
But if you said on page 44, you said this on page seven hundred,
you said that and I see a contradiction she would kick you
out. I mean that was grotesque, you
know, sometimes with my own students if they ask me it's
tough question. I threatened to kick them out,
but I'm only kidding, she was serious.
So she was an imperfect person but I tell you a heart and Ron
Paul with a to most Some people in converting people to
paternalism harfa, my generation Ron, Paul probably for your
generation. So, you know, we owe our we
live, it turns over great that and I and I like to pay my
debts. Edward Stringham said that he
tried to ask you a really tough question.
When he was one of your students.
He says these Libertarians I say coercively funded monopolies are
bad, but then they justify it in the realm of the production of
security and he said, That you took him into your office to
really give them the lowdown on what's going on.
I just, I love those stories. I remember one of my former
students. I must have maybe a dozen or
almost that doesn't. It have former students of mine
who are now professors of Economics like Ed and he is done
yelman work and I'm delighted that I was able to pass on the
Baton that Murray rothbard gave to me that I gave passed on to
Ed string on and many others next person.
Walter E. Grinder.
Most important thing you learned from him.
Well, before we get to him, I have to tell you a little bit
more of my Odyssey. I was sort of schizophrenic with
Ian ran because I had an approach avoidance thing with
her. They were the only Libertarians
I knew. So I would go to the meetings
and I would be put off by the cultish - and I stay away two or
three months and then I'd go back and then I was a student at
Columbia and Larry Moss was a fellow student of mine.
And he said, you must need the sky Murray rothbard.
He's an anarchist. I said why an anarchist?
That's no good. Remember I was a Randy and at
the time at least in terms of limited government, but finally,
Larry and his roommate, the jury wall has prevailed upon me to
meet Marie and I met Marie and Marie converted me to
anarcho-capitalism in about 10 minutes.
He said, you know, you understand why the post office
and and public sanitation is no good because Because of profit
and loss considerations that, I just mentioned a, why can't we
apply two armies courts and police and that was like the
light bulb that little over my head and then I became a
follower Murray rothbard and my big complaint about Marie was
stomach cramps. He was so funny.
He just kept you laughing and laughing and laughing an hour
after hour. You got stomach cramps.
Now that must have been 10 12, 15 people in Murray's, living
room. Out.
And obviously I couldn't hog up Marie because we had a share him
among 15. People Walter grinder was my
mentor. He sort of took me aside and he
was part of the Murray rothbard living room gang and I Walter
took me aside and What's the word worn off my rough edges?
He really got me into Austrian economics.
He was a friend of mine for many years and I have a great debt to
him for, you know, helping me to understand the finer points of
the Roth party. And just most important thing
you learned from Henry hazlitt. Well, this business of, you
know, we have to look at things not just in the short run, but
in the long run, we have to look at things, not on, not the
effect, not only on one person that on everyone Atlas Shrugged
now, he did great stuff on his book on Cannes, but that came
later. My conversion was not.
Not his attack on Cannes. My conversion was economics in
one lesson. So and I still use that in my
intro courses. I use Henry hazlitt economics in
one lesson and I used to use Atlas Shrugged to.
But my students rebelled, you know, that they said, what this
1,200 Pages, we're not going to read this.
So at least I have the hazlitt, which is, you know, I don't know
how many pages, 100 120 pages, so I can get away with that
because I couldn't get away with Sure, Henry hazlitt, I think
mises fun said that Henry hazlitt.
I forget who it was. Maybe Murray said this that
Henry has a, was The Economist who could write best most
clearly. And I mean, he was only a
journalist. He wasn't a PhD in economics.
But, you know, I don't really care about credentials like
that. He was brilliant that he was
magnificent. Just applying, you know, this
inside to rent control minimum wage from trade.
And unemployment Henry hazlitt is one of the key figures in the
libertarian movement. Benjamin Klein.
And just say that I dedicate the defending the indefensible to
him to hide your HEAP. He was one of the names in the
introduction. Then Klein was my college
roommate undergraduate and then came with me to some of the Ian
Rand Nathaniel Branden meetings, and we were converted together.
Ben had an illustrious career as a Professor of Economics at the
very prestigious UCLA University of California at Los Angeles.
Ben was a stalwart libertarian, but I never could convert them
to Austrian ISM. He was a mainstreamer, which is
okay. I mean if you have to be a
mainstream or at least be a Libertarian and he was he made
important contributions and you know, he was my college
roommate. So, you know, I have to tell you
a story about my college roommates.
My third roommate was no fun. You know, a lot of times, I
can't think of a word and I'm now 80 years old and I'm
wondering, what am I getting senile?
Well, I remember Ben and Nell and we would have some rule that
bike from 7 to 10. Nobody should go into anyone's
room because, you know, that's study time except if you
couldn't think of a word. And so, I'm comforted by the
fact that if I was seeing, if I'm now seeing all this, I can't
think of a word I would see. Now then when I was, you know,
20 or E1 or 22 Ben and I have stayed in such as have Bernie
Sanders. And I I mentioned that Bernie
Sanders and I went to high school.
Together. We don't stay in touch as much
but every five or ten years. We we link up and say hello to
each other. I have to tell him I Bernie
Sanders joke. Bernie Sanders is well known for
not running away from anything. He never ran away from the
socialism. Many years ago before socialism
was as popular as it is now mainly due to his efforts or
among other people. He doesn't even run away from
letting convicts vote. Not ex-convicts convicts people
in jail voting but there's one person he ran away from.
And that's me. Why?
Because we're on the track team. Together and he was one of the
best runners in the whole city and I was a mediocre Runner and
we start off with the same starting line.
And then he ran away from me. I could see the rear end of him
disappearing around the track. So Bernie Sanders ran away from
me that that's my Bernie Sanders joke, I think.
Did he also run away from Jan Health failed in his interview
with him. Do you?
What do you remember seeing that?
No, I didn't know that Jen hell felled the interviewed?
Bernie the Jan how felled interviewed.
What's her name? Policy.
Hello. See ya, beautiful interview.
Magnificent interview, and he was saying something.
Like, what are the minimum wage? You know, you love the minimum
wage. Well, how about do you have
interns? And she said, sure, I have
insurance and then he said, well, you know, how much do you
pay them order? Nothing is old, doesn't that
violate the minimum wage? You know what she said.
She's gonna call the cops on him.
Amazing. Jen health.
Child is a randian. I once had a debate with him
over anarchism versus limited government to our debate and
hopefully one day, we'll have another one.
A very nice guy for a Randy and I mean, you know, Randy has two
little cultish, but what the heck?
But he's one of the good people as far as I'm concerned.
Next person. Jerry wallows.
Well, during Willows was the guy who part he was Larry Moss, has
a roommate and Larry was unable to get me to meet Marie because
Mary was an anarchist and Atticus is anathema.
The, you know, they're chaos, you know, we'll have chaos if we
don't have government, I don't believe that.
But that was my view then, and it was jury wallows.
Who ganged up with me again, up against me with Larry Moss.
They were roommates. And Jerry also took me under his
wing sort of like Walter grinder.
Unfortunately, Jerry while I sort of dropped out of the
libertarian movement, the maybe after about five or eight years
that I knew him Jerry and I and Walter grinder were sort of
buddies and we hung around together.
So I would say Walter grinder. Was my main Mentor in the
rothbard camp and Jerry walls, was my second most important
mentor and it was he that Rio to be introduced to Murray
rothbard, so I have a great that to Jerry walls as well.
So you mentioned rothbard briefly, but at the end you say
and especially you dedicate this to Murray rothbard.
Is there anything else that you would like people to know about?
If they're only Vaguely Familiar with rothbard's work?
Well Murray rothbard is Miss the libertarian.
Very wrong chord is the one who combined left wing and right
wing and foreign policy Murray rothbard.
I mean we live in turns on left-wing on personal liberties.
We want to legalize drugs legalized prostitution is
legalized. Gambling legalized pornography
doesn't mean we like it, we can detest it.
But we distinguish between vices and crimes and Marie was solid
on. On and then he was solid on on
economics obviously. Yeah, I mean, he was, I think
the second greatest Economist who ever lived after after mises
and sometimes I think he was the first best Economist who ever
lived. And a lot of people thought
Murray was inconsistent because on the one hand, he sort of left
their shot on the one hand. He's rightish.
And then on foreign policy, he was against imperialism which
you know, everyone who favored free enterprise like Ian ran was
in favor of a U.s. Number one, we got to kick
everyone's but make sure they're like us and Marie said, you
know, hold on a minute. It's not the role of the
government if there's any role which is not it's not the role
of government, the US government to throw its weight around the
world. So Marie combined libertarian
foreign policy with attorney economics and libertarian
personal Liberties. And I mean, his book man,
economy and state is right up there with mrs.
Human Action as the two greatest books ever in economics.
A lot of my career has been spent standing on the shoulders
of Marie. I mean, he in, Atlas Shrugged,
he wrote one line of but about blackmail.
And I must have I wrote maybe 15 or 20 articles on blackmail and
then I put it all into a book on blackmail.
It all came from re-injury to Chile.
Once wrote a book, it all began with Ian Rand or it all started
with Ian. Ran for me.
It all started with Murray rothbard Iranians were sort of
the minor leagues. Murray rothbard was the major
leagues. I mean, And if you don't, you
know, what's his name, who ran for a little bitter and party,
Gary Johnson, Gary Johnson. Never heard him, Mary rothbart.
Yeah. I heard that.
Can you imagine you running for the lp?
And you never heard of Murray rothbard?
I mean, Murray rothbard. Is this the libertarian and not
only miss the libertarian, but Mr. Austrian Economist Murray
rothbard is magnificent. If you want to have an
introduction to libertarianism, Read for New Liberty, in the
ethics of Liberty. His two major pieces.
And if you want to learn about Austrian economics, man, economy
and state is the way to go Nori. Rothbard is my man, and I'm
honored that I was friends with him, from nineteen sixty three
or four until his untimely passing.
When he was 68 years old. I think it was 1995 when he
passed away Murray rothbard. Bored, I just can't say enough
about him. I owe my career to him.
I'm honored in several ways one time.
He couldn't teach his class at the Brooklyn Polytechnic and he
asked me to substitute for him. And I think I'm the only
co-author of Murray's and I co-authored a lot with one
people, but I'm one of my co-authors is Marie and I think
I'm his only co-author. So I'm very proud of that.
That was the when I was his associate.
Associate editor for the Journal of libertarian studies.
I think it was, we wrote together some sort of opening
Salvo for the JLS. Wow.
How about in 1981? You wrote a paper with Walter E.
Williams, titled male-female, earnings differentials a
critical reprisal. What is Walter Williams?
Is greatest contribution to economics.
Well, Walter, unfortunately just the late Walter Williams who
just passed away this year, you know, if you didn't know he was
black, you wouldn't appreciate him as much.
Black people who are Scott, black Scholars, who are free
enterprise. They're called Oreo cookies.
Because, you know, the idea is, if you're black, you have to be
a socialist like a Biden. Once told a black man that if
you don't vote for me, you're really not.
Black and the guy was black. I mean, this is grotesque Walter
Williams wrote this book, The State against blacks very
similar to another guy. Forget his name.
He writes for the Wall Street Journal.
Something stop, please. Stop.
Helping us. I forget the guys name, another
Jason Riley. That's it.
Jason Riley. So yeah, I'm losing names.
I couldn't think of Jason Riley. Who's a really good?
Good. What's the word a substitute for
Walter Williams or a good follower of Walter lands?
Well, Walter wrote this book, The State against blacks and
they rode on and on about how the state screws up black people
with all sorts of interventions welfare, minimum wage and you
know, regulations and licenses and everything like that, but
for a while I was working in Canada, and I was having a
competition between Walter. Me me, against Walter Williams
and Thomas, Soul. Thomas all was sort of want to
lay in his mentor. Just the way Murray rothbard was
my mentor. And what we were trying to do is
find out the highest ratio of female to male incomes because
you know, there's this what he called a male-female wage Gap.
For every dollar that a man earns a woman earns.
Oh something like 70 or 80 cents and the gap of 20 or 30 percent
is seen as sexism. And what we were trying to do is
say that this is due to the fact that all three of us, I was I
was in Canada. So I was getting Canadian
statistics. They were in the u.s.
That were getting u.s. Statistics.
And what we're trying to do is show that if you would never
married, The Gap disappeared and sometimes the Gap reversed.
So we were, we were in competition with each other to
find the highest female to male wage ratio or income ratio for
the never married. See the idea is that if you're
married and the woman does 3/4 or 4/5, or nine-tenths of the
cooking and cleaning and childcare and shopping, and
everything else. Well, even if they have the same
ability and And usually they do on average.
They're not going to be able to make as much money because
they're busy, taking care of the family.
So what we did is we compared a never married.
It's not widowed not divorce, not separated, not nothing.
And I think I think I won. I got 10. 9.8 mainly women are
in the 10% more than men for the unmarried.
I'm not sure if I beat them, but it was a friendly competition.
And then I co-authored honor that I I wanted an article with
Walter Williams. Again.
I don't think he co-authored too many things either, and maybe
I'm his only co-author. I'm not sure about that, but I'm
very, very honored that I can say that I'm a co-author Walter
Williams. Walter Williams is magnificent.
He's not a Libertarian. He's sort of a conservative.
He's a little weak on foreign policy, but on economics, he's
not an Austrian either. But what the heck?
He is a magnificent Economist and courageous.
I mean, for a while. White person to say, some of the
things is one thing for a black person to say some of these
things. It's very, very courageous
because of people had this idea that all blacks have to be
socialists. And if there's one thing about
Walter Williams, it's that he's not a socialist.
What was the industry where women were earning more than
men? Because when you look at like
the top 10 earnings of a super models in the world, all top 10
are women. I was curious.
A robe. What you came up with in your
research? No, it wasn't industry.
It was people. Oh, okay, obviously women make
more money as models. They're all male models, but
they don't make quite as much money as as female models.
I think it's reverse for movie stars.
I'm not sure if singers certainly would models, but my
research didn't go by industry went by all women in.
Canada. Who never married and now what's
the? What's the wage ratio?
I was at the Fraser Institute and you see what they, what the
census did was? They took single versus married,
but we didn't want single versus married because they're a single
people who are widowed divorced their single now, but they've
been touched by the institution of marriage.
So we had to pay be Canadian what he called the statistical
people extra money so that they would get The never married
stuff. They never thought to do that
and they were sort of resistant about doing it because it would
it would show the major thesis. That was incorrect.
And most important thing you learned from Ludwig, von mises.
Well, Human Action. Oh, I have to tell you my living
Von mises story. I want shook his hand and I
never washed it. So if you shake my hand you
Channel mises my hands a little dirty.
But what the heck? And I shook mrs.
Hand. And while I'm bragging, I once
beat hyack in chess, what did I learn from?
These has, what I learned from nieces, was Human Action, you
know? Purposeful.
A synthetic, a priori statements that the idea that there are
economic laws that you know, that cat that are not testable
and on a particularly necessarily true and for that,
he was considered a compass then.
Obviously the Austrian business cycle Theory, pretty much
started with him. And and, and also the Socialist
calculation debate I think would be a very important thing that
we learned from these. Has he got into it with langa
and some of these other people. I mean this guy he came to the
US when he was 61 and was fleeing the Nazis.
It was in, what was it? Switzerland?
It was in Austria and he was one step ahead of Hitler and he came
over here and an English is a second language, or third
language was honey. Out of his native language and
sort of like online ran. Then.
I don't know. He, he's either the first or the
second best Economist who ever wrote in my view and a lot of
what I have in economics comes from those two guys.
And just one more point on mises.
Why is it so important to focus on Human Action as opposed to
measuring gross domestic product and the Dow Jones Industrial
Average. Well, those are important to,
you know, you don't want to lose sight of other things just
because he's Justin specialize in them, but these has
specialized in giving us insights about the human action
and purposeful Behavior. And the idea that Again, you
bought that shirt for 10 bucks. Let's say you necessarily gain,
because if you didn't value it more than ten bucks.
You wouldn't have bought it now. It might be that you don't even
like the shirt. But the reason you bought it
was, you felt sorry for the guy selling you the shirt or maybe
it was a gal who's selling the shirt and wanted a date with us.
He bought the shirt. We don't know why you gain, All
we know is that when you plunk 10 bucks down on the barrel head
for that trick. There was something about that
shirt that made you better off ex-ante now exposed.
You might regret it, you know, you don't always happy with your
purchase and the same thing for the guy who sold to the shirt.
He probably had hundreds of them and he was willing to heed
probably value to that a buck or maybe - years was, you know, had
so much inventory. And, and he also gained you get
this from these has so clearly, And so beautifully and other
economists have had that too but they sort of got it from these
has. So I would say, Atlas not a
mature, Human Action is a magnificent book.
I have a seminar at Loyola University and the first book,
we discuss some Human Action and I call it the Human Action
seminar, even though now that I started this 20 years ago, but
honoring these as human Action by calling at the Human Action
seminar. And right now, we're on Hans
Hoppy's book. The God, That Failed democracy,
The God That Failed. But we've done many, many other
books in 20 years, but that was the first book.
And that's that's the name of this seminar that I run.
I want to thank everyone for watching the libertarian
Institute and Keith Knight. Don't tread on anyone.
Dr. Block. Thank you so much for your time.
You're very welcome, and it was a delight and thanks for those
wonderful questions.