June 30 marks the ninetieth birthday of Thomas Sowell. But it is insufficiently celebrated, in no small part because he shares that birthday with Frederic Bastiat, one of history’s most famous economics writers, whose work attracts a great deal of attention then.

That is ironic in that Sowell and Bastiat share an uncommon ability to write sensibly about economics in ways “real people” can understand, especially in spotting the errors that are so common in public policy, without overreliance on jargon, diagrams, or mathematics.

Speculative frenzy in the midst of recession is not a new phenomenon. Yet the extent of the “madness” this time might well beat records in the small sample size available from the history laboratory. The combination of extreme monetary radicalism and a receding supply shock has proved to be a potent toxic, impairing mental processes in ways described by the behavioral finance theorists. The pandemic stock “bubble” and resumed hectic demand for risky credit paper provide illustrations.

There are many good reasons why those who aspire to learn and practice sound economics should read Human Action. However, the reader should approach the book with care and humility. For a book as subtle and profound as Human Action presents several pitfalls for the careless or superficial reader. In these remarks I will briefly cite the most important reasons for reading the book. I will then dwell on a few pitfalls that may ensnare the incautious reader.

The 2020s started off horrendously. Thanks to an exaggerated coronavirus pandemic, government lockdowns sunk the economy into the most serious recession since the Great Depression. From February to April 2020, industrial production collapsed by 15.2 percent and official unemployment figures skyrocketed from 3.5 percent to 14.7 percent. To put these numbers in perspective, during the Great Recession industrial production fell by a similar amount (17.3 percent) from December 2007 to June 2009 and unemployment “only” peaked at 10 percent in October 2009.

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) is an area of several city blocks in Seattle that has been taken over by a group of people unconnected with the government. They have established a police-free zone and are now busily administering this territory.

Is this a voluntary socialist commune? A free enterprise zone? Are the new inhabitants who have seized control of the area legitimate homesteaders or illegal squatters, that is, trespassers? Who are now the proper owners of this acreage, of the buildings, roads, parks, and houses therein?

The slogan Defund the Police sounds milder than the previously popular F— the Police. Though viewed as radical at the moment, the newer slogan might turn out to be only an intermediate step on a path to some tepid reform plan such as “Modest Budget Cuts for the Police in the Next Fiscal Year.”

You misunderstand if you think I’m unwilling to think more radically than that. But even if you’re a fellow libertarian, the odds are that you’re easily confused by radical resistance strategies, confused about which ones are most compatible with liberty.

A viral disease known as COVID-19 has been declared the cause of death of over one hundred thousand Americans. When cases first appeared in the United States, individual states considered and then implemented various forms of mandatory lockdown to “flatten the curve” of new cases and minimize the death toll. I have previously questioned the wisdom of these lockdowns here.

Imagine if, in your role as an employer, you had to explicitly list every potential offense, short of criminal activity, that would result in the firing of an employee. Would putting someone in a choke hold (resulting in a $1.4 million lawsuit) and later calling it a “semi-bear-hug hold” have made your list? This is the position that management in some police departments find themselves in.