Who Were the Sea Peoples?

Why should we believe that unrestricted free speech results in the triumph of the... best? most truthful?... opinions? Science, thank goodness, never adopted Mill's speculative view: science ruthlessly winnows out bad papers, bad experiments, and bad theories, giving them the least exposure possible -- perhaps just an editor, perhaps an editor and two referees -- so that only better science gets published. (Of course, mistakes are made! But the system largely works.) So in morals, why should we expect free speech to produce good results? In fact, I claim that in morals have excellent reason to think it will produce degeneracy: after all, who doesn't like to be told that those vices they want to indulge in really are virtues? Does someone think "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" won out because it was the best advice, or because it panders to what we are inclined to do anyway?

I am re-reading Sowell's wonderful book, Say's Law: An Historical Analysis . If you want to read a fascinating history and understand the theoretical issues at play more clearly, do pick it up. In any case, a will, as usual, comment occasionally as I read, starting here. The first thing of note is, come on, this is Thomas Sowell. He is a fairly market friendly, "right-wing" economist, and no "born again Keynesian," as I was recently accused of being. So if he says that Say came to agree with Malthus, well, perhaps he is wrong, but it's not because he wants to throw the decision to the opponents of Say's Law; he is just being honest. And when he writes, in his very first sentence, "The idea that supply creates its own demand -- Says' Law..." he is not trying to back Keynes, he is letting us know that is a pretty darned good way to summarize Say's Law. He also shows that the case made by the general glut theorists was often mis...