The topic of the thread is the concept of racism, with a side topic of a history book on the earliest years of the country, not "cosmic justice" and "equality". Ayn Rand gave the best analysis of racism. Rockwell's essay is very poor. https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

The link you found is less expensive at $20 vs amazon's $24.80 for the hard cover. An amazon order is eligible for free shipping for a total order over $25 but amazon also routinely now charges tax. The Mises bookstore seems to not charge shipping at all. I didn't see if they charge tax. The amazon $3.99 for kindle is also more than the Mises free pdf and epub.

The Article of Confederation were non-functional and incapable of protecting individual rights, as is Rothbard's anarchism. The states were very mixed, and without the Federal Bil of Rights they would have become much worse than they already are. That doesn't condone Hamilton's statism and doesn't mean that the Constitution couldn't have been better.

Very nice post. Thanks for sharing!

If one wants more discussion on equality, I highly recommend Thomas Sowell's "The Quest for Cosmic Justice"

The review indicates the book includes Rothbard's criticism of the Hamiltonian faction (federalists) who insisted on a constitution with a bigger stronger central government. imo, the Articles of Confederation were better protection for individual liberty and Rothbard's criticism is valid in that respect.

The book is also available via Mises Bookstore https://store.mises.org/Hardcover-P11...

Of course leftists would call you racist for rejecting tribalist entitlement -- they denounce everyone as "racist", especially if you reject their own racism.

The "cultural" factor mixed with racism was addressed by Ayn Rand in "Global Balkanization" referred to on this same page https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

The rise in "ethnicity" mongering by the left and spreading from there on top of the left's fallacies calling others racist while practicing it themselves is important to understand. Ayn Rand spotted it as a major trend and analyzed it over 40 years ago. Her earlier analysis of racism is fundamental, but not enough to understand the full ethnicity movement.

I hadn't known that there was a fifth volume either. It turns out that he had left it mostly in hand-written rough draft form, which has recently been edited and published.

It is available as https://www.amazon.com/Conceived-Libe...

Free downloads for pdf, epub and an audio book are at https://mises.org/library/conceived-l...

The first four volumes were informative and interesting, but one has to ignore the occasional pleadings for anarchism and the repetitive 'Indian good -- white man bad' revisionism. The preface by Napolitano in the new 5th volume indicates that it has its own problems, but it looks like it is worth reading for the history apart from his evaluations.

Rockwell begins his essay on racism by asserting "I doubt anyone really knows what it is" and circles around in search of a definition without ever landing on one, concluding that one must "shun the state" and its "language". This is typical a-philosophical libertarianism attempting to invoke politics as the base in philosophical issues.

Ayn Rand explained racism in terms of its essentials, opening the chapter "Racism" in The Virtue of Selfishness with:

"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage—the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors." https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/govern...

The essay continues to explain and discuss racism, its implications, and implementation in depth. From this the leftist fallacies in calling everyone they don't like a "racist" while advocating racist policies themselves are clear.

She later built on that in her discussion of "ethnicity" in her 1977 Ford Hall Forum lecture "Global Balkanization" https://courses.aynrand.org/campus-co...

" 'Ethnicity' is an anti-concept, used as a disguise for the word 'racism' — and it has no clearly definable meaning. . . . The term “ethnicity” stresses the traditional, rather than the physiological characteristics of a group, such as language — but physiology, i.e., race, is involved . ... So the advocacy of “ethnicity,” means racism plus tradition — i.e., racism plus conformity—i.e., racism plus staleness"

The entire discussion of ethnicity was reissued as the chapter "Global Balkanization" in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (expanded 1999 2nd edition entitled The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution) and also in The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought.

This is especially important with the continuing rise of "ethnicity" and racism today.

I could care less what race a person belongs to (given also that today most people are mixed races actually). But I do care what their cultural ideas they have absorbed, and I do discrimminate based on those. So call me a culturist of sorts.

I dont like entitlement and want little to do with any entitled people. Unfortunately, a lot of blacks (since Obama) consider themselves entitled, and act that way. Of course not ALL blacks are entitled, but its one of the traits that is pretty obvious and is grounds for me to not deal with them. There are people of other social groups who are entitled too, and I have learned to pick out that trait pretty quickly and stay away from them too. The leftists would call me racist of course (whatever that means...).

Thanks for posting this, brightwriter.
It led me to the review of Conceived in Liberty, Volume 5: The New Republic.
I hadn't realized it was available. I already own the earlier 4 volumes.
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