Block against the Blockheads: Learning from Economics and the Absurd
Block against the Blockheads: Learning from Economics and the Absurd

Author(s): Nicholas A. Snow
Subject(s): Economy, Political Philosophy, Economic policy
Published by: Addleton Academic Publishers
Keywords: Reductio ad absurdum; Walter Block; Bastiat; Austro-Libertarianism;
Summary/Abstract: F.A. Hayek (1988, 76) famously said, “the curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” And this is, unfortunately for us economists, a thankless task. Afterall, the world is filled with men who have earned the title of what Adam Smith (1976 [1790], 233-234) referred to as, the man of the system, who is, “apt to be wise in his own conceit; and is so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it… He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board.”

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