Lies, Damned Lies, and Libertarianism

From: J
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2018 10:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Lying as a form of force

Two Questions in Political Economy

Dear Dr. Block, I’m sure you already got a ton of responses about the above.

I’m referring to a post you made a few days back where you stated lying wasn’t coercion/force.

Please allow me to elaborate why the two are mutual.

First, any lie can be categorized as manipulation which is a soft form of coercion because it can force people to make decisions they normally wouldn’t.

Probably an even better point is that lying and force often go together, especially with the state.

E.g., the state calls it conscription, libertarians call it kidnapping. Other than the use of the barrel of a gun to enforce conscription, the state also uses lies to control the information about war as necessary and good leading many to believe there is no sound alternative. Therefore the two go hand in hand.

I’d say the same is true with taxation, aka theft according to Libertarians. While this is also enforced with the barrel of a gun, lies also perpetuate the myth of taxation as good leading many to think there is no alternative to funding road construction. The two go hand in hand here as well.

Just wanted to share a thought I had after giving it consideration.

By the way, I saw your interview on CSPAN and thought you broke everything down so clear and concise that a high school student could get it.

Take care, J

Dear J:

Thanks for your kind remarks about my c span interview on this book:

24. Nelson, Peter Lothian and Walter E. Block. 2018. Space capitalism: the case for privatizing space travel and colonization. Palgrave Macmillan; https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-74651-7; https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/3319746502/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=1531187909&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl2&tag=economicpolicyjournal-20&linkId=959e913e476f48b289a16223d557a826; http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2018/07/new-walter-block-book-space-capitalism.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+economicpolicyjournal%2FKpwH+%28EconomicPolicyJournal.com%29;
https://www.c-span.org/video/?448910-4/space-capitalism;
https://mises.org/power-market/walter-block-talks-space-capitalism-cspan;
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/hey-im-on-tv-c-span/;
http://mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com/2018/09/walter-block-on-space-capitalism.html;

In this blog https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/two-questions-in-political-economy/

I lied. I said that 2+2=5. That’s a blatant lie on my part. I’m a criminal? A tortfeasor? No. Not the latter, unless I was contractually obligated to tell the truth.

In many sports, people “lie” to each other. Basketball, football, soccer, baseball, tennis. In the former three, they feint in one direction, and run in the other. In the latter two cases, the pitcher makes as if he is going to throw one kind of pitch, and then throws s a different one. In tennis, the player fakes hitting to one side of his opponent, and hits to the other. Ditto for handball, volleyball, all racket sports. Liar, liar, pants on fire, right? Wrong. This stance is highly problematic.

Here are some more lies of mine: the earth is flat. The sun revolves around the moon. It is now midnight (it’s actually 9am). Hitler and Stalin were libertarians. Ron Paul is a commie. Mises and Rothbard did not make magnificent contribution to economics

Best regards, Walter

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10:07 am on September 28, 2018