Interventionism

One of the characteristic features of this age is the general attack launched by all governments and pressure groups against the rights of creditors.

Behavioral economists say that since individuals are irrational, we need more state intervention in the economy. However, their criticism can be turned around: if individuals are irrational, government power is especially dangerous.

Roosevelt stands for the national government as we know it today: a vast, unfathomable bureaucratic apparatus.

As Zimbabwe's economy worsens, its government now insists residents start using easily-inflated local currency again. This is sowing the seed of another devastating episode of hyperinflation.

The particular crises to which Keynes reacted were themselves the products of misguided government policies.

State intervention and a crushing fiscal policy made the whole empire groan under the yoke; more than once, both poor men and rich prayed that the barbarians would deliver them from it.

What exchanges take place, and which do not, is affected by how markets are regulated. Black markets and regulated markets have different outcomes than free markets.

Europe is seeing the dangers of allowing demagogy to dictate energy policy. 

Professor Walter Block joins Jeff Deist for a fantastic in-depth discussion of Henry Hazlitt and his work.