Why the “Economy Is an Engine” Metaphor is So Wrong

Is the economy “overheating,” or is it “humming” along smoothly? Should the Federal Reserve “prime the pump” to spur investment, or “pump the brakes?”

Such questions of course use an engine metaphor to describe the economy. But why?

In fact, the economy is more like a complex ecosystem rather than an engine or machine.

Indeed, a machine is consciously designed to accomplish one main purpose, and its parts fitted together to achieve that objective.

Reparations vs. Property Rights

Socialists throughout the western world are celebrating the decision in South Africa to confiscate land from white citizens to redistribute to the black population. Flowing from the logic of collective, race-based guilt, the justification is that this land redistribution is the correction of historical injustices that took place under apartheid.

Immigration Roundtable: Walter Block

Editor’s note: our immigration roundtable is a series of articles presenting the views of prominent Austrian and libertarian thinkers. By necessity each article provides only a basic overview of those views, with links to original sources.

Our goal is to present each thinker’s views on immigration by excerpting his or her writings on the subject.

Private Cities: A Model for a Truly Free Society?

Imagine a system in which a private company as a “government service provider” offers you protection of life, liberty, and property. This service includes internal and external security, a legal and regulatory framework and independent dispute resolution. You pay a contractually fixed fee for these services per year. The government service provider, as the operator of the community, cannot unilaterally change this “citizens’ contract” with you later on.

Even Cows Understand the Problem with the Commons

A popular poster depicts four cows standing in the corners of their respective fields at the intersection of two barbed wire fences. Each of the four cows has stretched her neck through the wires to reach the grass in another cow’s field. The poster invokes a humorous reaction from most observers. To most it would illustrate the phrase that “the grass is always greener on the other side,” or maybe how silly we all are pursuing distant pleasures when there is an abundance available to us where we are.