Charity serves an important and indispensable function in society: not everyone can engage in enough productive work to meet the daily needs of his or her family. But entrepreneurs and businesses have to create wealth before it can be given away.
What if machines took most of our jobs? Things would become less expensive, and humans would become wealthier in real terms, just as has happened since the Industrial Revolution began. Fear of labor-saving technology continues unabated, nonetheless.
We’re often told that CEO pay is outrageously high and that increases in executive pay comes at the expense of worker pay. If we look beyond the few examples used by the pundits, however, we find that these oft-repeated “facts” are anything but.
We’re often told that some prices should be high, and some others should be low. But the real goal should not be high prices or low prices, but a price system that communicates what is valued in society.
If all work and all workers were homogenous, we might be able to say that the gender wage gap is caused by sexism, but the gap is better explained by big differences in the life goals and chosen industries of men and women.
Political dependence and economic dependence are two very different things. Political dependence is fostered by coercion and monopoly power, but economic dependence is simply a choice we make when we especially like one thing more than the alternatives.
Our daily lives are determined by our choices as individual economic actors.
Our daily lives are determined by our choices as individual economic actors. When governments intervene in our personal economics, they intervene in our personal preferences and choices.
