Dear Folks:
I have been invited to give a series of speeches by a libertarian group at Oklahoma State University starting tomorrow, 10/17/23. I am scheduled to speak on the privatization of roads, oceans, space, and on libertarian issues such as blackmail. This visit of mine was publicized to the entire campus community. It led to a protest being planned to make it impossible for me to be heard.
Below, see correspondence between me and Landen who had invited me on this occasion. See the announcements of my talks. Most important, see the petition that the protesters are circulating
Best regards,
Walter
From: Landen
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: !RE: Developments Regarding Your Upcoming Lecture at OSU
Dr. Block,
By all means, go right ahead.
Landen
On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 8:14 AM Walter Block <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Landen:
Is it ok with you if I blog this correspondence of ours?
Best regards,
Walter
From: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2023 5:52 PM
To: ‘Landen
Subject: RE: !RE: Developments Regarding Your Upcoming Lecture at OSU
Dear Landen:
Notes to the protestors at the event is all well and good and I support it.
But you can’t put all the info I sent you on a poster. I urge you to e mail the info I’ve sent you to the entire campus community.
Is there some error on the dates? I arrive at your place on Tuesday, 10/17 at 4:05pm and depart on Thursday, 10/19 and 9:30am. I thought I would be speaking for you on the evening of 10/17 and pretty much all day on wed, 10/18 (a lunch and a dinner presentation?)
But you have me speaking on 10/19 at lunch. Is this an error? Can it be rectified if so?
I’d like to give 3 presentations:
1. privatizing roads oceans, etc.
2. blackmail etc
3. refuting the charges against me: slavery, racism, sexism, etc
Would this be possible to arrange? I’d like them all taped, and you send me the urls afterward
Best regards,
Walter
From: Landen
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: !RE: Developments Regarding Your Upcoming Lecture at OSU
Attached is the second flyer. I accidentally sent the previous email without attaching this one.
Landen
On Sun, Oct 15, 2023 at 5:10 PM Landen wrote:
Dr. Block,
I will see what I can do about getting your statement out to the protestors. I may attempt to make some flyers we could hand out to the protestors at the event that counter their claims against you. It is incredible how little they’ve read into your views considering the magnitude of their tenacity to give you the boot.
I will attach below the flyers we made for your lectures containing the times, locations, topics, etc.
We will have someone at the airport to pick you up. I’ll follow up with you on this once I have more information.
Regards,
Landen
On Sun, Oct 15, 2023 at 1:39 AM Walter Block <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Landen:
Full steam ahead, say I.
Share this with the protestors, with whomever you think it will help.
I was talking about voluntary slavery not actual slavery. It was a hypothetical! The NYTimes mistquoted me. I sued them and won a settlement. I have a long track history of favoring reparations to the grandchildren of actual slaves. How can I both support actual slavery and also favor reparations for this crime?
Suppose my grandfather stole a wristwatch from your grandfather. Then, my grandfather passed it down to my dad, who gave it to me. Posit, that had this theft not taken place, your granddad would have given the watch to your dad, and from him it would have passed on to you. Should I be compelled, by law, to hand over that watch to you? It still has your grandfathers initials, or picture, or both, on it.
You say I should keep it? You want to promote theft? I say, I owe you that watch. That’s the case for reparations
Here are my publications on this matter:
Alston and Block, 2007; Amos and Block, unpublished; Block, 1993, 2001, 2002, 2019, 2014, 2020A, 2020B; Block and Yeatts, 1999-2000; Crepelle and Block, 2017; Nouveau and Block, 2020.
Alston, Wilton D. and Walter E. Block. 2007. “Reparations, Once Again.” Human Rights Review, Vol. 9, No. 3, September, pp. 379-392; http://tinyurl.com/2b75fl; https://philpapers.org/rec/ALSROA; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12142-007-0055-x
Amos, Jon-Paul and Walter E. Block. Unpublished. “Contra Horowitz: A Case for Reparations to Blacks for Slavery.”
Block, Walter E. 1993. “Malcolm X,” Fraser Forum, January, pp. 18-19; http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/5361.aspx
Block, Walter E. 2001. “The Moral Dimensions of Poverty, Entitlements and Theft,” The Journal of Markets and Morality, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 83-93; http://www.acton.org/publicat/m_and_m/2001_spring/block.html; http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=922087; http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marketsandmorality.com%2Findex.php%2Fmandm%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F587%2F577&ei=lBn9UuLIOtDOkQe1toHwBw&usg=AFQjCNF2MZ5XoFKKMF5UcOfOT5Kv-HQgZA&sig2=VVYWZhyl0ZmAWRAKXtkxWw; Search for “Walter Block” under “Authors” here: http://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/search
Block, Walter E. 2002A. “On Reparations to Blacks for Slavery,” Human Rights Review, Vol. 3, No. 4, July-September, pp. 53-73;
http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/reparations_slavery.pdf; https://link.springer.com/journal/12142/3/4/page/1; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12142-002-1003-4
(David Horowitz, Randall Robinson)
Block, Walter E. 2020B. “Return of Stolen Property: A Libertarian Case for Reparations.” December 18; https://www.theepochtimes.com/return-of-stolen-property-a-libertarian-case-for-reparations_3177301.html
Block, Walter E. 2019. “Return of Stolen Property: A Libertarian Case for Reparations.” December 23; https://www.theepochtimes.com/return-of-stolen-property-a-libertarian-case-for-reparations_3177301.html
Block, Walter E. 2020. “Reparations.” February 16;
https://www.unz.com/article/reparations/
Block, Walter E. and Guillermo Yeatts. 1999-2000. “The Economics and Ethics of Land Reform: A Critique of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’s ‘Toward a Better Distribution of Land: The Challenge of Agrarian Reform,’” Journal of Natural Resources and Environmental Law, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 37-69; http://www.walterblock.com/publications/ethics_land_reform.pdf
Crepelle, Adam and Walter E. Block. 2017. “Property Rights and Freedom: The Keys to Improving Life in Indian Country.” Washington & Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice; Vol. 23, Issue 2, Article, 3, pp. 314-342; http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1435&context=crsj; http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol23/iss2/3/
Houma Indian
Nouveau, Lucas and Walter E. Block. 2020. “A comment on reparations for slavery.” Libertas: Segunda Epoca; http://www.journallibertas.com/online-first.html
As for female wages being below that of males, it is mostly due to marital assymetry. Wives do way more cooking, cleaning, baby care than husbands. The ratio of female to male wages is about .7. That is for all people. Do you know what the what the ratio is for never married males and females? It is 1.0. There isn’t any gap for them!
Here are some readings on this:
Becker, 1971, 1983, 1993; Block, 2014; Block and Walker, 1985; Block and Williams, 1981; Dubner, 2016; Hoff-Summers, 2017; Lehmann, 2018; Levin, 1987; Lukas, 2011; Marcus, 2020; McGee, 2017; Mincer and Polachek, 1974; Mortell, 2022; Perry, 2014; Sandel and Loury, 2020; Sowell, 1982; Woods, 2017
Becker, Gary S. The economics of discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.
Becker, Gary S. Human capital, Effort and the sexual Division Labour. Journal of Labour Economics, Vol 3,No 5, 1985, p. 33-58.
Becker, Gary S. Nobel lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior. Journal of Political Economy, 101(3), 1993, p. 385-409.
Block, Walter and Michael A. Walker. 1985. Focus on Employment Equity: A Critique of the Abella Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, Vancouver: The Fraser Institute.
Block, Walter E. and Walter E. Williams. 1981. “Male-Female Earnings Differentials: A Critical Reappraisal,” The Journal of Labor Research, Vol. II, No. 2, Fall, pp. 385-388; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/mfearningdifferentials.pdf
Sayers, Rachel. 2012. “The Cost of Being Female: Critical Comment on Block.” Journal of Business Ethics; Vol. 106, No. 4, April, 519-524;
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-011-1017-4;
I am very proud of Rachel for writing this, and, sorry to blow my own horn, proud of myself for helping her get this essay published in a prestigious refereed journal. Why? This is due to the fact that this former student of mine not only takes a position 180 degrees apart from mine, but, also, directly criticizes my own work on this matter. (Needless to say, this brilliant but in my view mistaken on this one issue student earned an “A” in this course; her essay started out as a term paper for one of my courses).
Block, Walter E. 2014. “The Cost of Being female: Rejoinder to Sayers.” The Review of Social and Economic Issues (RSEI), Vol. 1, No. 1, Summer, pp. 37-69; http://rsei.rau.ro/images/V1N1/Walter%20E%20Block%20.pdf; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-011-1017-4;
Dubner , Stephen J. 2016. “The True Story of the Gender Pay Gap.” January 7;
Hoff-Summers, Christina. 2017. “Male-female wage gap.” March 7; http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2017/03/feminists-celebrities-and-politicians.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+economicpolicyjournal%2FKpwH+%28EconomicPolicyJournal.com%29
Lehmann, Claire. 2018. “Why is There a Pay Gap Between Male and Female Uber Drivers?.” February 6;
Levin, Michael. 1987. Feminism and Freedom, New York: Transaction Books
Lukas, Carrie. 2011. “There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap: A study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that women earned 8% more than men.” Wall Street Journal, April 12;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250672504707048.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Marcus, David. 2020. “The American Left Has Now Fully Embraced Racism.” December 9; https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/19/the-american-left-has-now-fully-embraced-racism/
McGee, Robert W. 2017. The Alleged Gender Pay Gap: A Comment on Horwitz. Working Paper. March 30. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2943866.
Perry, Mark J. 2014. “Once you impose the ‘ceteris paribus’ condition, the alleged 23% gender pay gap starts to quickly evaporate.” April 2;
Mincer, J.; Polachek, S. Family investment in human capital: Earning of Women. Journal of Political Economy, 82 (2), 1974, p. 96ñ108.
Mortell, Connor. 2022. “Are Equal Pay Arguments Based upon the Labor Theory of Value?” April 19;
https://mises.org/wire/are-equal-pay-arguments-based-upon-labor-theory-value
Perry, Mark J. 2014. “Once you impose the ‘ceteris paribus’ condition, the alleged 23% gender pay gap starts to quickly evaporate.” April 2;
Sandel, Michael and Glenn Loury. 2020. “The Question of Affirmative Action: An Interview with Glenn Loury.” December 16; https://quillette.com/2020/12/16/the-question-of-affirmative-action-an-interview-with-glenn-loury/
Sowell, Thomas. 1982. “Weber and Bakke and the presuppositions of ‘Affirmative Action,'” Discrimination, Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity, Walter E. Block and Michael Walker, eds., Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, pp. 37-63
Woods, Tom. 2017. “That Male-Female Wage Gap.” February 4;
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/02/thomas-woods/male-female-wage-gap/
I favor rape? That is libelous. Untrue. Note, they don’t quote me on that.
Maybe, broadcast this response of mine to the entire university?
What is the program? I think I’m to give two lectures. Please tell me when, where and the topics for each. I’d be glad to debate any professor on campus on these charges, if we can fit in a third appearance.
My flight arrives at 4:05 pm on Tuesday, 10/17. United Airlines flight 1373 from Denver. Will someone meet me at the airport?
Best regards,
Walter
From: Landen
Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2023 8:56 PM
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: Developments Regarding Your Upcoming Lecture at OSU
Dr. Block,
It has come to my attention that protests are being organized by a loosely organized leftist group due to your upcoming presence on our campus. They have been distributing flyers making various claims about your views. They have also begun contacting administration and organizing a petition to have your lectures cancelled by the University. I will attach these below.
Last week the same group showed up to a lecture by Alex Epstein regarding fossil fuels and were not insignificant in number. They handed out various (largely inaccurate) papers detailing some of his views and some “facts” about the climate etc. They were generally respectful but the chanting was a bit of an interruption.
That being said, the odds of their petition succeeding are close to zero. The primary issue would be that their noise drowns out your talks. We are coordinating with school administrators to minimize this potentiality.
Please let me know what concerns or suggestions you might have regarding this information.
Landen
4:30 am on October 20, 2023
