Philosophy and Methodology

Unexpectedly, John Maynard Keynes's critique of economist Jan Tinbergen's econometrics offers some sound insights.

Man is not evil merely because he wants to enjoy pleasure and avoid pain — other words, to live.

The committee to select the winners of the Nobel prize in economics almost always prefer interventionists to laissez-faire economists. The first year was no exception.

Free speech does not imply people are free to insult you in your living room. Similarly, all property rights are "limited" in many ways by the property rights of neighbors and other owners.

Are modern economists pseudoscientists like the astrologers of old?

The modern drive to centralize European government and make a European superstate threatens to destroy what made Europe great in the first place.

Truly cohesive communities can only exist on a relatively small scale. Most people outside these groups will then be seen as "outsiders." Our goal must be to minimize conflicts with these outsiders, and voluntary exchange is our best option.

In a recent article at The Atlantic, libertarianism was singled out and criticized for valuing freedom more than justice. David Gordon explains that libertarianism doesn't value freedom more than justice. It defines justice differently.

Human beings like to form cooperative groups to achieve various ends. Research has shown, however, that there are limits to the size and nature of these groups, and this is why the state so often turns to violence.

Compared to the golden age of innovation, now maligned as the "Gilded Age," technological innovation has slowed considerably. But, it doesn't have to be this way, if we can only get the state out of the way.