Tuesday, October 23, 2007
No more free lunches
By the beginning of the 21st Century, everyone was looking for the proverbial "free lunch". That was the impression created, at least. By mid-century, after some major hard knocks, we were back to the "TANSTAAFL" mindset ("There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", as Robert A. Heinlein liked to say). We also love our freedom. The natural state of man is to be a small-L libertarian. We tend towards the consequentialist brand of libertarian, rather than the libertarianism of the "rights theorists". Robert A. Heinlein has been described as having a "proto-libertarian" theme in his books, especially the earlier ones. This is telling: "This type of libertarianism is associated with Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and James M. Buchanan. Some writers who have been called libertarians have also been referred to as classical liberals, by others or themselves." The "free lunch" crowd tended to want the free lunch at someone else's expense.
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5 comments:
Grandpa used to tell me about the days of the "nanny state". People looking to the government for a replacement of personal responsibility sounds crazy today, but we all know how it used to be. He always thought things started changing with the unlikely candidacy of the late 2000's.
I don't know if that was all it was, though.
I would say that is EXACTLY what we have under Labour in England today. Also your earlier entry about things being made illegal purely to generate revenue is already true here.
Jim, I was wondering: have you ever read any Jack Vance? His books are all out of print but I still have a couple about 30 years old.
The Jack Vance book that I remember best is The Star King (1964). When I saw the cover, it recognized it immediately. I must admit to not having read much Jack Vance. in the late 1950's to the latter 1980's, I was devouring all science fiction that I could find. I have some H. Beam Piper originals, but I only bought them in the 1990's. My favorite book is The Philosopher's Stone by Colin Wilson. I don't care for his other works, but this one I like. As for Piper, I like Lord Kalvin of Otherwhen and a few others of the same type. I also like Nevil Shute books, such as the sort of alternate history book In the Wet, about an Australia that never existed and a Britain where things played out differently then they actually did.
James, so you are recommending Jack Vance, given the sort of thing that I am writing?
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