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Professor PLoppa does not understand the subject his article discussed, perhaps because of his hostility to individual freedom (couched in his interpretation of "fairness" and "lies".).Having read and reread everything Mises wrote, everything Rothbard wrote, a lot of what Hayek and Friedmamn wrote, and a little Buchanan, I do know the subject. So I'm qualified to criticize.

Underlying free market economic theory is the moral outlook that individuals have (or ought to have) lives of their own, beholden to no one else: no state, or union, or community, or university, or public health tyranny, or "consensus". There is one ethical principle that individuals in society must observe: Live peacefully, without violence or coercion or thrreats.

People are individuals, because nature requires humans to live by making appropriate choices, which requires thinking. Thinking is an individual activity; some think and question carefully and well. Others choose not to think nor try to understand much of anything, hence their love of "consensus".

To live and achieve a morally good life, then, people must be free to think and choose for themselves. Thinking requires freedom to discriminate between sound and unsound ideas and reasoning. Living requires thinking and freedom of choice. If one loses the freedom to act on one's conclusions, including those counter "consensus", one is tempted to give up thinking as a useless mental exercise.

Free market ideas, in varied ways, all explain how a voluntary social/economic order is natural (appropriate to man), benevolent and highly productive. Many people resent such ideas, regardless of reasoning and proof, to the extent they cannot bring themselves to think about the subject.

Rothbard was wrong about his anarchism and some other ideas in economics; Mises' theory of profit was erroneous as was his moral skepticism; Hayek came close to rejecting human volition and the fact of human choice together with morality; Buchanan I don't remember much about. The greatest free market economist is.George Reisman, who improved on and strengthened Mises' economics. He started attending Mises NYU seminar on economics at 16. His magna opus is Capitalism.

Thanks.

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