DeLong Smackdown Watch: Gene Callahan Edition
Gene Callahan:
La Bocca della Verita: Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Blogosphere?: Mike Konczal… claims that Ludwig von Mises's case against "free love" is "implicitly" a case against birth control…. [T]his new tool called Google, with which one can actually find out what Mises thought about birth control, rather than just giving it your best guess. If he had tried this Google thingie, he might have discovered that Mises was a birth control enthusiast:
It is not the practice of birth control that is new, but merely the fact that it is more frequently resorted to. Especially new is the fact that the practice is no longer limited to the upper strata of the population, but is common to the whole population. For it is one of the most important social effects of capitalism that it deproletarianizes all strata of society. It raises the standard of living of the masses of the manual workers to such a height that they too turn into 'bourgeois' and think and act like well-to-do burghers. Eager to preserve their standard of living for themselves and for their children, they embark upon birth control. With the spread and progress of capitalism, birth control becomes a universal practice. The transition to capitalism is thus accompanied by two phenomena: a decline both in fertility rates and in mortality rates. The average duration of life is prolonged." -- Human Action
My point here is… to note, once again, how the desire to bash one's political opponents tends to throw even minimal standards of truth-seeking right out the window. It would have taken Mike about two or three minutes to find out what Mises really thought about birth control... but why bother, when he thought he had a juicy quote with which he could order libertarians to "man up"? And Brad DeLong, without bothering to check this himself, enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon.
Brad, why oh why can't we have a better blogosphere?
Touché...
I would plead, unconvincingly:
That having plowed my way through Socialism and Money and Credit, there is no way in the Holy Name of the One Who Is that I will spend any time plowing through Human Action: "time's winged chariot…" you know…
That I was thinking of Friedrich von Hayek's take on how Harriet Taylor bewitched John Stuart Mill into socialism…
That, historically, since before the days of Wollstonecraft the combination of enthusiasm for birth control and enthusiasm for female sexual subordination is something quite rare…
That I am now eagerly looking forward to reading people from the Ludwig von Mises institute denounce Mitch McConnell for attempting to reproletarianize America…
But I will redouble my efforts to first verify, then trust…
