Abstract: The French social model is mainly a model of state interventionism, which creates a strange contrast between two things: the fact that France is a collectivized society and the fact that it has produced some of the most famous and important intellectuals (for instance, Turgot, Bastiat, and Jean-Baptiste Say). We are inclined to wonder why these liberal writers—who are famous all around the world—have not been able to convince French people so that France would be a model of liberalism.

Soaring public pension costs are driving a wave of tax hikes across California, but many officials are reluctant to admit that fact. Instead, voters are told that higher taxes are needed to fund services like parks and public safety, or other items that enjoy similarly positive poll-tested support.

Conventional wisdom holds that savings is the amount of money left after monetary income was used for consumer outlays. Hence, for a given outlay, an increase in money income implies more savings and thus more funding for investment. This in turn sets the platform for higher economic growth.

Reflections on Ethics, Freedom, Welfare Economics, Policy, and the Legacy of Austrian Economics
Israel M. Kirzner. Eds. Peter J. Boettke and Frédéric Sautet
Carmel, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2018
xiv + 782 pp.

People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent
Joseph E. Stiglitz
New York: W.W. Norton, 2019
xxvii + 371 pp.

Todd McGowan, a professor of film studies at the University of Vermont, has done something remarkable. In his just published Emancipation After Hegel, he writes clearly and forcefully about Hegel, a notoriously difficult philosopher. People often view Hegel as an enemy of freedom, but McGowan says the critics have it all wrong. Hegel, far from being an enemy of the “open society,” as Karl Popper would have it, offers the best account of freedom that we have. I shall try to examine McGowan’s argument for this surprising view.

Admirers of the work of Hans-Hermann Hoppe will be pleased by some news from our friend Youssif Almoayyed, an outstanding supporter of the Mises Institute who lives in Bahrain. Youssif informs us that books by Hans have been translated into Arabic and are selling very well.  His A Short History of Man was brought out by a small Iraqi publisher from Mutanabbi Street, a historic center in Baghdad for paper making, book binding and bookselling, now known as an intellectual center.

Back in October of 2017, Bandy Lee—a forensic psychiatrist at Yale who doubles as a self-anointed political schoolmarm—notoriously diagnosed President Trump as having so-called narcissistic personality disorder.