[This “report” appears to have been written while Professor Raico was a university student. No date is given. The paper was found in a folder in the Rothbard Papers that included several unpublished papers by Raico.]
The New York Times recently ran a fascinating piece on the innovative management practices used by sharing-economy firms like Uber, AirBNB, and TaskRabbit. These firms match riders with drivers, house guests with building owners, homeowners with plumbers, and so on. The challenge for the platform owners is that the providers are independent contractors, not employees, and must therefore be incentivized to provide services.
Donald Trump’s airstrikes in Syria are tragic proof that he is just as eager to wage actual warfare as he is to wage economic warfare.
Yet there should be nothing surprising about his recent attacks. Military intervention does not represent a reversal of Trump’s deeply-held values (if he has any), nor is it a subversion of good intentions by malevolent forces in US politics. He is simply staying true to his word, for once.
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are adamant that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians last month. They have thus far provided the public scant hard information to back up their claims. Even Obama ally Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) characterized the evidence in a Sunday Capitol Hill classified briefing as “circumstantial.”
Immigration restrictions and trade restrictions are often two policies that go hand in hand. Donald Trump, of course, provides an instructive example of a politician who has won elections while promoting both policies.
The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops — no, but the kind of man the country turns out.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
