In late September surgeons successfully attached a kidney from a genetically modified pig to a human body, establishing a “proof of concept.” This is a large step in alleviating a massive shortage of cadaver or donated human body parts for those often desperate people in need of a transplant.
While Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell considers the ramifications of his $5 million stock sales prior to the market slump of last year, the rest of us should be left wondering: What else are they not telling us? This week, some lesser-known members of the Fed offered some ideas worthy of consideration.
The people of all countries agree that the present state of monetary affairs is unsatisfactory and that a change is highly desirable. However, ideas about the kind of reform needed and about the goal to be aimed at differ widely. There is some confused talk about stability and about a standard which is neither inflationary nor deflationary.
In his book Let’s Have Socialism Now! (Yale University Press, 2001), the French economist Thomas Piketty places great emphasis on “solidarity,” and his opposition to the free market rests to a large extent on its conflict with that purported value. In this week’s column, I’d like to examine what he says about solidarity, and, as you might expect, my conclusions are negative.
It is well known that socialism is a shortage economy. It is the economy of inefficiency and corruption, of indifferent workers and of bigwigs, of lacking spare parts, of lacking funds, of failure, of permanent reform needs and of constantly unsuccessful reforms. This concerns in particular total socialism, as it was realized in the Soviet Union or under National Socialism.
Purchasing Submission: Conditions, Power, and Freedom
by Philip Hamburger
Harvard University Press, 2021, 320 pp.
Philip Hamburger has made a revolutionary contribution to American constitutional law. He shows that what is often regarded as a narrow topic, “unconstitutional conditions,” of interest only to specialists, is in fact fundamental to understanding our contemporary system of government and moreover that its abuse poses grave dangers to liberty.
Order and chaos (complete disorder) have long bookended people’s view of their circumstances. For instance, I have read that order versus chaos was the primary division in ancient Egyptian religion, where order also meant justice and chaos meant injustice. Much more recently, Henry Adams wrote that “Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.”
In this world, there exists a multitude of supranational organizations, agencies and committees which, may or may not, work in concert with each other for the purpose of central planning. Countless bureaucrat salaries are funded with the public’s money or debt, paid not to produce goods or services that have a market price; instead the goal is to rearrange society based on the notion that they possess a calculation method or some higher knowledge allowing them to know how society “should be.”
Across the political aisle pundits are suggesting industrial policy as a tool to contain the ascent of China. Commentators worry that failure to do so might result in China eclipsing America as the world’s economic superpower. Without doubt, the tantalizing arguments abetting industrial policy are gaining traction because defenders of markets have failed to make their case in a way the public can understand.
Speech doesn’t become a “threat” just because a government official calls it that.
