Friday, August 23, 2013

Debates Old and New

Someone recently webbed a debate from more than thirty years ago between me and George Smith on ethics vs economics as a foundation for libertarianism. I enjoyed watching it and thought some readers of this blog might enjoy it as well.

After a more recent debate, this one with Robert Murphy, my opponent commented in a blog post that "The only major miscommunication is that Friedman just wanted to talk about methodology, whereas I, the moderator, and the Porcfest event brochure all thought we were talking about the ethical foundations of anarcho-capitalism as well." 

I wasn't discussing the ethical foundations of anarcho-capitalism in that debate because I thought the debate was about the Chicago school approach to economics vs the Austrian school approach and the subject of both schools is economics, not ethics. But it occurs to me that my debate with George was on very nearly the same subject that Robert thought was missing from our debate, so anyone who would like to see what I would have said to Robert can now do so. I will leave it to Robert to decide whether George did an adequate job of representing his side of the argument.


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