Daily Archives: 31 August 2011

Hoppe on Knowledge

These two lectures speak to a very subtle, but very important topic underlying economics.

There’s a struggle between empiricists who insist there is no knowledge without experiment, and rationalists who believe in the triumph of reason. When the former, the empiricists reign, economics gets treated like just an opinion true only until it can be refuted, with all theories (including socialism) being valid until experiments are conducted.

The second of these two lectures by Hans Hermann Hoppe is more accessible than the first.

The Labelling on my Yogurt

In some states it is illegal to label your milk rBGH free. rBGH is a hormone which is occasionally linked to illness immediately before the scientist conducting the study decides to retire.

On my “Liberte” brand yogurt it says “rBGH free: Milk produced without the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin.”

This is immediately followed by: “No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBGH treated and non rBGH treated cows.”

I’m certain that food and chemical companies are so effective at using regulation to strangle competition that someone could go to jail for selling this yogurt without that last note about the safety of rBGH.

I urge my leftist friends to be careful when they call for regulation. They’ll usually get it.