The great economic historian Robert Higgs was interviewed recently on C-SPAN2's "Book tv." The interview is three-hours long; every minute is worth watching.
As regular readers of this blog know, I greatly admire Bob's work (and Bob personally). His 2006 book Depression, War, and Cold War is just out in paperback; this book — data-rich and well-argued — effectively challenges the claim that the New Deal helped to improve the American economy during the 1930s, and the claim that war and military spending promote prosperity.
Oh, and his 1987 book Crisis and Leviathan is, justifiably, a classic.
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I watched the entire thing the other day. I was rather disappointed in a lot of the callers. They called up saying things to him they were either petty and dim or simply showed that weren't listening.
The Have you no shame?! caller is typical of a very confused (and angry) POV that assumes that one cannot be against Wall St. largesse, corporatism and the like without being some sort of social democrat.
That caller even called him a fascist! Something that couldn't possibly any further from the truth. Stunning.
That exchange started at 36:15 of the video. You can jump there without waiting for the video to load. An honorable mention for dimness occured at 1:18:45.
What's most striking about calls like this is that there was context. Higgs had been clearly discussing these matters throughout the video and his views should have been more than clear to anyone listening. Those callers couldn't possibly have missed Higgs's position on such matters. Their rants were dead on arrival.
Such people think an awful lot about their own opinions but very little about what others whom they are listening to actually have to say.
Higgs was superb. His patience, good nature and clarity were admirable.
My econ professor at my undergraduate school suggested I watch this. Robert Higgs was responsible for getting one of his (quite controversial) papers published. The paper was an examination of the link between the collapse of the Bretton-Woods agreement and the oil crisis of the 70s (fantastic paper, by the by).
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to scrape three hours together yet and give the interview the attention it deserves. I'm glad it's getting good reviews here. I can't wait to watch it.
It is quite good.
I sent the link to a friend and here is his review"
"Wow! Great find Sam! Thanks. Really enjoying Robert Higgs right now."
Apparently some people listen with a comb filter that leaves blank spaces in their short term memory preventing them from gaining comprehension.
BTW, this link will take you to a page at mises.org listing some of Mr. Higgs publications available in pdf or web pages.
Rude callers weren't the only result for Mr. Higgs:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs113.html
Actually, that's Doctor Higgs
Higgs is reminiscent of Heinlein and he's an engrossing speaker throughout the 3 hours. If you haven't listen to his econtalk, I recommend it. I've listened to it three times because his ideas are so clear and entertaining: lowering unemployment through conscription is obviously no boon, but it took a Higgs to point it out.
"I was rather disappointed in a lot of the callers. They called up saying things to him they were either petty and dim or simply showed that weren't listening."
Entirely true. Seminar callers seemed to rapidly take over C-SPAN about 4 years ago, making the call-in sessions quite revolting. Prior to that, there were more intelligent, and certainly more decent people calling in.
Higgs was brilliant.
Anyone who wants to know what Gibbs thinks about the environment and environmentalists need only look up his talks on Youtube. He thinks all environmetalists (that's an environmentalist who likes heavy metal rock) are the equivalent of commies, which is an ad-hominem bogus argument if there ever was one. He would lay waste to this planet, if he could, and maybe he can with your help, in the name of corporate profits. His vision of the world of the future would be a futherance of the destructive nightmare that monopolistic corporatism has already wrought to life on this planet. He only sees positive externalities for corporate greed, and negative externalites for upstanding people who devote their lives and energies to saving a millions-of-years-old rainforest, like the Amazon, from imminent destruction or from a species that evolved there over the same time frame from extinction. The Dodo is not extinct for gibbs is one.
Gibbs makes rational, compassionate people's blood boil because he is so brainwashed in favor of the monied interests that his idea of freedom is actually death and destruction for the continuance of life in any quality state, except for those capitalist plunderers who have mansions on lucky hole 7 of their country club's golf course. Without golf courses where would the golf ball/cart industry be? Gibbs might muse amusedly. I took a U.S. economic history course and there were no reference to the "great" economic historian Higgs, as you mislabel him. Greatness like beauty is in the mind of the beholder, I guess. Now get your "collective" minds out of the gutter, which may be impossible if Higg's ideas turn the whole planet into one.
As usual, I haven't the foggiest what Trumpit is talking about.
TrumPit,
I think the bitterness has debilitated your mind.
Nowhere did Higgs express any support for the moneyed interests.
If you perceive otherwise, perhaps you can detail it.
If you can do so objectively rather than from partisan bias, I will be amazed.
trumpit,
Were you one of the callers I'm talking about??
"monopolistic corporatism"
I know. It is frightening. You can see it happening. Fewer and fewer corporations with greater and greater power. Pretty soon there will be just one corporation owning everything, with all of us forced to be shareholders. And then what have we got?
A state.
I've been trying to figure out a way of downloading the interview. Any ideas anyone?