Re: Social History-Classical Liberalism (#51824)
by Jason Kuznicki on January 30, 2005 at 12:08 PM

Bill,

I am afraid I don't see what value you find in preferring concepts over ideas. How would you differentiate betweenthem in practice? If I were to give you a set of things, could you put them into one category or the other? For example, consider the following:

--the labor theory of value
--Coase's theorem
--apartheid
--mercantilism
--gender
--freedom of speech

Are all of these "concepts?" Or are some of them "ideas?" If so, what do we gain by this designation?

As to my same-sex marriage, I do not expect that a piece of government paper will convince any libertarians that my relationship, as you term it, is sufficiently deep or valid. But it is both deep and valid, far more so than most relationships, and I find it conceptually improper to put myself on the level of those who are just casually dating or merely thinking about a long-term commitment. We already have that commitment, and some word must be found to designate it. If marriage is not the appropriate term, I really can't think of one that would be better.

Finally, the idea of the corporation as a cultural practice is exactly the sort of thing that I think is important. The legal side of economic history is not quite my area of expertise, though, so I'd like to do more reading before I say too much about it.