Ron Paul, Batman, and Austrian Economics

——UPDATE—–Oct 17, 2008

Theories of War and Violence-The Joker and Rasholnikov

An examination of moral theories of war and violence using Raskolnikov from ‘Crime and Punishment’ and the Joker from ‘The Dark Night.’

END UPDATE

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Ron Paul’s favorite comic book hero is Batman! But of course!! See the link to Jefferey Tucker’s review of Dark Knight in the comments below too.

Batman:
Unlike most superheroes, he does not possess any superpowers; he makes use of intellect, detective skills, science and technology, wealth, physical prowess, and intimidation in his war on crime…….Rather than simply outfighting his opponents, Batman often uses cunning and planning to outwit them…….The Guardian wrote, “Batman is a figure blurred by the endless reinvention that is modern mass culture. He is at once an icon and a commodity: the perfect cultural artefact for the 21st century.

The Discovery of the Lost Papers of Ludwig von Mises
by Richard M. Ebeling, March 1997

“For challenging the collectivisms of our century, Ludwig von Mises became a leading intellectual enemy of the statists around the world. Fascists and communists hated him for his destruction of their evil utopian fantasies. Interventionist-welfare statists tried to ignore him and his refutations of their schemes for manipulating men and markets and forcibly redistributing wealth.”

But with the rising tide of Nazism in Germany, Mises realized that the political and economic future of Austria was increasingly uncertain. Because he was an uncompromising classical liberal and an Austrian Jew, a Nazi takeover of Austria would threaten not only his professional work but his life as well. So, in March 1934, he accepted an invitation from William Rappard, director of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, to take up a position as Professor of International Economic Relations. In October 1934, Mises moved to Geneva.

But Mises kept his apartment at 24 Wollzeile, District III, in Vienna. His mother continued living there until her death at the end of 1937. Shortly after the Nazi occupation of Austria in March 1938, the Gestapo entered the apartment and removed the contents.

From his residence in Geneva, Mises mailed out, on March 9, 1939, an “Information” to his friends in Europe that the Gestapo had carted off the contents of the apartment. He explained that he had lost his library, his personal and family documents, correspondence, files, papers, and manuscripts. When friends of Mises still in Vienna attempted to intercede on his behalf to get his papers and personal property back, the Gestapo claimed that they could not be found. They were never seen again. In the years following World War II, Mises and his friends assumed that they had been destroyed, either by the Nazis or in the destruction of war.

But, in fact, his papers had not been destroyed…..Read the rest here…..