I have fully written the ‘Part Two’ of my lengthy post on the effects of inflation and deflation. It’s waiting in my drafts file, and I had intended to publish it today. Today however I have been watching a very interesting biographical film and felt I should mention it while the topic is fresh. The other post will wait another few days. The movie in question is entitled Obscene and it is about Barney Rosset. If you don’t recognize the name, it’s worth following the link. Something you won’t find in the wikipedia article, and which is basically tangential and irrelevant to the bulk of the movie, is that Barney Rosset actually avows himself as a socialist early in the film. This won’t stick to the average viewer, but for obvious reasons, it sticks to me and may stick to others predisposed to read my writings here.
That said, what also stuck to me was that I like what Mr. Rosset did. For himself, as a businessman whose success hinged on these very liberal-minded court battles. For our culture, as someone who stood against censorship and against conformity. I’m not going to go into any frank discussion of sexuality here; there are better blogs for that and it’s ultimately tangential to my point. What occurred to me is that you can’t throw someone under the bus for any one facet of their politics. This publisher, who went into business and then won victories for free speech in America, was a socialist. His legacy was nevertheless for freedom.
I’m not claiming him for libertarianism. It’s not for me to speak for someone who I hadn’t even heard of yesterday. It’s not even for me to claim this is some wonderful movie that is shining golden truth in every way and every part. This is my first contact with Barney Rosset. But it reminds me that to immerse oneself in an echo chamber is not healthy for intellect and ambition. Better writers than I have vaunted the works of the Austrian School of Economics. (That’s also a worthy link; it goes to the Ludwig von Mises Institute website.) I might have to read, and read closely, some more adversarial literature. If I do, I’ll review them here as well, and of course I will pick ones that are relevant to Economic Libertarianism.
It’s vaguely possible I’ll change my mind about something if I really do that. There’s no point in getting out of the echo chamber if you’re not going to listen to what you find in the wider world, after all. Where I go I will in any case go by reason… I doubt that reason will lead me too far away from where it has led me so far!
If anyone has any suggestions for things that I should read and review feel free to leave a comment on this post.