Human action, but not design

As we continue to reflect on Gordon Woods massive view of the nascent American republic - 1789-1815 I continue to consider the CATO Unbound discussion from last month, its relevance to our analysis of the historical conflict of visions in our society and the apparent triumph today of the unconstrained view of life.

The entire Sept. discussion is well worth a read if you have not yet been over there, but the commentary - The Best of the Blogs is particularly relevant.

A bit of heads up - Amy Willis tells me that the APEE conference in April will feature a session on blogs, she writes:

As you may know, the annual conference of the Association of Private Enterprise (APEE) is coming up, April 10-12, 2011 in Nassau, Bahamas. The theme of this year's conference is "Institutional Evolution Toward Freedom and Prosperity". (Please see below for some elaboration on this theme.) As part of this program, I am organizing a panel presentation, "The Institutional Evolution of the Blogosphere", made up of of active bloggers. My hope is that each blogger can comment on their objectives, the success with which they feel they've met, and especially the evolution of this particular form of communication. That is, how has the blogosphere changed since each began? How effective is the blogosphere in terms of questions of political economy? How does this venue differ from other forms of (mass) communication? How has the blogosphere influenced ongoing conversations about political economy? What are we missing thus far and/or what do we have to look forward to from the blogosphere? And, of course, any other questions you feel pertinent.