According to the popular view, the revival of some important economic indicators has raised the likelihood that the aggressive lowering of interest rates by the Fed will invigorate the economy. The irony is that the very same loose monetary policies that are expected to energize the economy in fact undermine its main source of strength.
The custom of tipping is an excellent demonstration of the market's ability to solve real-world problems of dispersed knowledge and transactions costs in order to ensure the maximum satisfaction of consumer preferences. Normally taken for granted, tipping is in fact a beautiful illustration of the power of voluntary, decentralized exchange.
Given the support unions have provided for so many politicians, their support for PLA "sweetheart deals" for unions on public construction contracts is hardly surprising, particularly since very few Americans know about them. But they are doing no favors for taxpayers or for the vast majority of workers who are not union members.
Robert Nozick writes, "The fundamental question of political philosophy, one that precedes questions about how the state should be organized, is whether there should be any state at all. Why not have anarchy?" Why not, indeed? James Ostrowski reflects on the recent death of philosopher Robert Nozick.
Why shouldn't the worker who is willing to render the best services for the least pay be the one who gets the job? Instinctively, most of us recoil in disgust at the suggestion that wages should reflect nothing more than the cold calculus of supply and demand. Yet few of us realize just how essential this "cold calculus" is for the long-run welfare of laborers themselves.
In attempting an outlook for the year ahead--and those of the Austrian School firmly believe all such endeavours are an exercise in futility--Sean Corrigan sets out a brief theoretical framework, predicting likely market phenomena and official policy actions, and presenting factors that could derail his predictions.
No one forms a firm by acquiring resources for the firm at gunpoint. No one becomes an employee of a firm through conscription or forced labor. Firms are formed, and people join firms, as part of a process of voluntary cooperation that we usually refer to as the market.
There has been a lot of talk recently about foreigners who hate our prosperity and civilization, and seek ways to inflict violence in retaliation. Well, here is another case in point, except these are not swarthy Islamic terrorists; they are diplomats and statesmen on nobody's list of suspicious characters.
The January 15 decision in EEOC v. Waffle House (99-1823) promises to reduce the immense efficiency gains to seeking resolution outside the court system by blocking another exit to the state's courts. If the right to choose an alternative venue for dispute resolution can be so severely circumscribed by the courts, one more check on judicial tyranny has been lost.
How does the left get away with describing right-wing thought as Talibanish, especially when compared to the left-wing agenda of speech codes, economic regulation, and authoritarian intervention in every aspect of American private life?
