I am still looking for papers for my guest editorship of Studia Humana celebrating LIBERTARIANISM (not Austrian economics!). Due to the pandemic, the deadline date has been postponed by one month. I am looking for scholarly papers with footnotes, a bibliography, etc. I have had several inquiries about this matter recently. Here’s one of them
Dear Allan:
Wow. That’s one of the nicest letters I’ve ever had sent to me. It means all the more, coming from you.
The deadline is no problem. I’m moving it up from May 1, 2020 to June 1, 2020.
However, this special issue is supposed to celebrate libertarianism, not Austrianism. Yes, the two are not unrelated; ok, strongly related. But, the former is an exercise in the normative discipline, the latter in the positive. If you can work libertarianism into your paper, I’ll give it a very serious read. If not, and the paper is all Austrian with no libertarianism in it at all, then, why not send it for publication to the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics instead?
As for Nick Gillespie, he has done much good work in promoting liberty over his career. My charitable interpretation of him is that he had an off night during that debate with me.
Debate: Walter Block, Loyola University New Orleans versus Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine;
November 1, 2016. NYC. Soho Forum https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/debate-reasons-nick-gillespie-trump-president-slavery-nytimes/ Gene Epstein [email protected]
go here, http://www.thesohoforum.org/; then here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNHcqc6jNrg (the debate starts at the 19 minute mark) Resolved: “Libertarians should vote for Donald Trump for president.”
https://twitter.com/skycorridors/status/793580125488943105 (the debate starts at around the 24 minute mark; the comedic introduction starts at about the 18 minute mark); http://141.164.71.80/exchange/walterblock/Deleted%20Items/Good%20job.EML/1_multipart_xF8FF_2_walter%20vs%20douchebag.jpg/C58EA28C-18C0-4a97-9AF2-036E93DDAFB3/walter%20vs%20douchebag.jpg?attach=1;
Best regards,
Walter
From: Allan Stevo
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2020 1:57 PM
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: SUBMISSION: Libertarian v. Banker: The Battle For The Soul Of A Technology
Dear Walter,
This took quite a bit more work than I expected from the originally presented paper. If you are still taking submissions, this far past the May 1 deadline for the libertarian edition of Studia Humana, I submit this approximately 7,000 word piece to you for your consideration in those pages.
It is a philosophical exegesis on the core passion for truth behind Austrian economics and other fields, technological advancements that have made this present era the era of the Austrian, and needed technological improvements to further advance this era of the Austrian.
Whether or not this piece is accepted, most importantly to me is the opportunity to share this with you, as I thought of you when I wrote this a year ago. There were others I thought of as well, but you played such an important role, that your invitation to submit papers perked my ears. Even if this isn’t a fit for the journal, I welcome this opportunity to share it with you. It is based on the passion and dogged determination for finding the truth that you bring to your public appearances and writing.
A particular event played such a prominent role in that. One night in New York I watched you debate Nick Gillespie and there was such determination for you to get at the truth. And there was such glibness from Gillespie at the same. It was painful for me to watch him do that. Beyond a few articles and a few conversations, I barely know Mr Gillespie or his work, but to see him have the treasure of libertarian thought in front of him and such a coveted place in the community, and to treat the search for truth like that verged on the nihilistic. That was painful. In his attitude toward you, he rebuked so much of what I love, and he did it wearing a leather jacket, as if that made him the cool person on stage. In reality, you are the eponymous Libertarian in this piece and he is the eponymous Banker. Though I think Mr Gillespie might imagine things differently, from the point of this onlooker, you are the “Hermes energy” mentioned in this piece and Gillespie that night was the embodiment of the very opposite – the Germanic PhD system that has such cynicism built into its roots for that passion for life and passion for truth that you embody. Hopefully, this piece hits at that sufficiently that no further explanation is needed.
I will end my verbosity in this cover letter and just want you to know that this member of the remnant was watching from the third row that night as Gene Epstein moderated between the two of you and I saw what happened, and I don’t like one bit what Gillespie brought to the table the night, and I honor what you did. He did you one favor that night in being your foil. And he did me the favor that night of so definitively drawing a dichotomy between two approaches to the world, a dichotomy that inspired this paper as I wrote it last summer and delivered it at one of the most well regarded conferences of its kind. DEF CON they call that conference.
Wishing you my best.
Respectfully,
Allan
2:45 am on May 6, 2020
