Jeffery L. Degner



Articles by Jeffery L. Degner

The Importance of Hülsmann’s Groundbreaking book Abundance, Generosity, and the State

Guido Hülsmann’s Abundance, Generosity, and the State provides readers with an explanation of the nature and causes of gratuitous goods. Hülsmann demonstrates how free markets are infused with both intentional and unintentional gratuity, and how the repressive and permissive interventions of the modern state lead to their destruction.This work is desperately needed and represents a remarkable achievement by one of the Austrian School’s leading lights of our time. It is the first successful and systematic treatment of this underappreciated category of human action. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that it belongs alongside the great advancements in economic science, and I can say, without hesitation, that it will stand alongside works such as Ludwig von Mises’s Socialism and Murray

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The Importance of Hülsmann’s Groundbreaking book Abundance, Generosity, and the State

Guido Hülsmann’s Abundance, Generosity, and the State provides readers with an explanation of the nature and causes of gratuitous goods. Hülsmann demonstrates how free markets are infused with both intentional and unintentional gratuity, and how the repressive and permissive interventions of the modern state lead to their destruction.
This work is desperately needed and represents a remarkable achievement by one of the Austrian School’s leading lights of our time. It is the first successful and systematic treatment of this underappreciated category of human action. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that it belongs alongside the great advancements in economic science, and I can say, without hesitation, that it will stand alongside works such as Ludwig von Mises’s Socialism and Murray

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The Politicization of Procreation: The Ultimate in “the Personal Is Political”

In the ultimate example of “the personal is political,” families form, break up, or expand due to US presidential elections according to a recent article in the American Economic Review. Apparently, the alternative responses of doom or elation that occasions electoral politics is so extreme that the losers couldn’t bear to bring a child into such a world, while the winners . . . well, you know.

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Reclaiming the Anti-State Roots of Christmas

While Christians the world over look to the celebration as a way to remember the incarnation of Christ, some dismiss it as a Christianized version of the ancient Rome’s Saturnalia. Whatever one’s view happens to be, I humbly suggest that it ought to be used by Christians and non-Christians alike as a reflection upon a collision of two kingdoms and two forms of rule. One that makes the way for life, and the other for misery, suffering, and death.
If the celebration of Christmas is an acknowledgement of the Almighty’s offering of peace and goodwill to people everywhere, then it behooves all people to remember who it is that offers universal war and ill-will. No other earthly institution has so consistently offered the latter than the state. The advent story itself reminds us in the second

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