4 Comments
User's avatar
jacob silverman's avatar

Well, I don't think this is as great as you think it is. I do not follow Austrian school economics. When I saw this: "Commerce, producing and trading toward living better lives, becomes the lifeblood." I did not agree at all. Nirvana through trade is a fallacy. Why would just merely trading (or the three-part way Jeffery Tucker puts it: comm, producing, trade) create all of that? Why this belief that "trade" is going to be magic? This is sadly misinformed. This is a total fallacy. At this point out society is falling apart but I do not know the answer. This piece by Tucker has, unfortunately a bit of the "smug" within in itself, no less than maybe others do.

Expand full comment
jacob silverman's avatar

"turned out to be a pipe dream" -hi, this part made me ask what "pipe dream" means. I like the phrase without really understanding the derivation. Does is derive from pipes like the plumbing, or a pipe that you smoke?

Expand full comment
John Kelleher's avatar

I keep reading that Lincoln was kept off the ballot in Southern states. But wasn’t the more significant development that John Breckenridge was listed as the Democratic Party candidate not Stephen Douglas who actually was the Democratic Party candidate. Now I do know Lincoln wasn’t on the ballot in a number of states but was that because he was kept off or was it because the Republican Party founded in 1854 and running only it’s second presidential candidate had virtually no presence in the South.?

Expand full comment
Jon Miltimore's avatar

Yeah, the Republican Party was very new and it was an anti-slavery party. There was so much hostility to the GOP and Lincoln at the time I don't think anyone would have even tried to get him on the ballot.

Expand full comment