Time is the one resource that no economic model can manufacture, and every serious theory of human action must eventually confront it. Yet mainstream economics has chosen, almost without exception, to treat time as an objective variable that is measurable, uniform, and expressible in equations. This is not merely a methodological shortcut but a foundational error, and the distinction that exposes it was drawn not by an economist but by a philosopher: Henri Bergson.

Consider what Appalachia gave America before America returned the favor in pill form.

One of the reasons why we fall for the erroneous idea that patents are good for society is because we greatly overestimate the importance of the specific individual or company making a discovery while being unaware of how the market process—via its various mechanisms like prices, the profit motive, and economic competition—plays a key role in innovation.

Willmoore Kendall (1909-1967) was an editor of National Review, though he later broke with the magazine’s founder and editor, William F. Buckley, Jr. Murray Rothbard devoted critical attention to him, and I have sometimes written critically about him myself.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation,. . .”—Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address” (November 19, 1863)

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”—Francis Bellamy, The Pledge of Allegiance (September 8, 1892)