Violence and Glamour Sell
John Tierney’s latest column in the New York Times (requires simple registration), “The Mild, Mild West,” is an excellent introduction to both the demythologization of the American west and to the understanding of how social cooperation and peace emerge. It was inspired by the quite fun and eye-opening new book The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier, by Terry Anderson and P. J. Hill. The book’s a real gem. (I remember when they gave the paper many years ago at a Libertarian Scholars’ Conference that became the journal article that later became the book. A very exciting piece.)
On May 1 of this year I wrote a short posting on “Justice Without the State” that discussed some related literature.