One of the things that has always irked me about the libertarian/anarcho-capitalist ethic surrounding this site is that, despite being able to put economics into more plain, explainable terms than virtually any other theory of economics, it still presumes to be talking over the head of John Q. Public at ground zero. Relating the terms behind Austrian economics is just as important as mastering them, and it seems that the LvMI cause hasn’t quite succeeded to that end (but in all fairness, at least they’re trying).
I had two watershed moments early in my journey of learning about economics. The first moment was in my freshman year in college, a random suggestion from a friend to read Henry Hazlitt’s ‘Economics In One Lesson’. No less than 8 chapters in and everything I thought I knew about the world around me was completely blown, and I loved it. I’ve given away (and paid for) more copies of the book than I care to count anymore.
The second (and this is the pertinent one) was in my junior year of college, when I had been hanging out with some of the basketball players who were from the Caribbean. One day I dropped by the dorm room of one of the guys and several of the players were fully invested in something on TV…that didn’t involve game controllers! I figured it must be a comedy show, but was I ever wrong.
They were instead watching an old series devised by Walter Williams titled “The State Against Blacks”. Here was economics, where the good intentions of economic policy met with the absolute worst of its consequences, and it was framed in terms of (and for) the man on the street. I was completely enthralled, and even managed to get a copy of his book of the same name through interlibrary loan (the book is out of print, and although Williams recommends his latest book Race and Economics as a worthwhile substitute, it certainly doesn’t replace the original).
Through the wonders of the internet I was able to come across this series again on YouTube, and I would highly recommend it to others here:
The State Against Blacks – Part 1
The State Against Blacks – Part 2
The State Against Blacks – Part 3
The State Against Blacks – Part 4
The State Against Blacks – Part 5
The State Against Blacks – Part 6