“If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers ‘separation’ over ‘union,’ “I have no hesitation in saying, ‘let us separate.’” 1

~ Thomas Jefferson

Recently, a relatively new economics called behavioral economics (BE) has started to gain popularity. Its practitioners, such as Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith, and Richard Thaler, were awarded Nobel Prizes for their contribution in the field of BE.

The BE framework emerged because of dissatisfaction with the neoclassical theory regarding consumer choices. In the neoclassical theory, individuals are presented as if a scale of preferences is hard-wired in their heads. Regardless of anything else, this scale remains the same all the time.

The Chinese communists are hoisting the U.S. government on its own petard, at least with respect to Julian Assange, the Australian citizen who, with WikiLeaks, disclosed war crimes committed by the U.S. national-security establishment.

For decades stretching back to the Cold War, U.S. officials have reveled in leveling condemnations and criticisms of Red China for its human-rights abuses and denial of civil liberties.

The crown jewel of Las Vegas trade shows, the Consumer Electronics Show, just left town having attracted only a quarter of the show’s typical attendance. At the same time, the Consumer Electronics Show was the first big test for Elon Musk’s Boring Company’s one mile underground tunnels running from one end of the Las Vegas convention center to the other, theoretically turning a twenty-minute-walk into a one-minute-ride. 

The historian and economist Deirdre McCloskey often laments the power that pessimism and despair seems to have over us.

For all the great value in Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein’s new book, A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century, we find plenty of enmity toward markets and market forces.

I. THE STARTING CONDITIONS

In this article I want to explain that a rapid departure from the free market system (or what is left of it today) is taking place before our eyes, and that this is a development that endangers not only prosperity but also the peaceful coexistence of people in this world.

To explain this to you and to find a solution to the problem, I am beginning my lecture with the starting conditions.

Money supply growth rose slightly in November, rising above October’s twenty-one-month low. Even with November’s rise, though, money supply growth remains far below the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years. During thirteen months between April 2020 and April 2021, money supply growth in the United States often climbed above 35 percent, well above even the “high” levels experienced from 2009 to 2013.

In a section of Power and Market called “The Problem of Immoral Choices,” Murray Rothbard considers an important objection to the free market, and I’d like in this week’s column to consider some of the points he raises.