For a century and a half, the idea of secession has been systematically demonized among the American public. The government’s schools spin fairy tales about the “indivisible Union” and the wise statesmen who fought to preserve it. Decentralization is portrayed as unsophisticated and backward, while nationalism and centralization are made to seem progressive and inevitable.
The United States Export-Import Bank is scheduled to expire at the end of June 2015, and the elected representatives of both parties are tripping over themselves to reauthorize it, citing the importance of exports and strong private enterprise to the American economy.
We refer to the dollar as a “reserve currency” when referring to its use by other countries when settling their international trade accounts. For example, if Canada buys goods from China, China may prefer to be paid in US dollars rather than Canadian dollars. The US dollar is the more “marketable” money internationally, meaning that most countries will accept it in payment, so China can use its dollars to buy goods from other countries, not solely the US.
Mises Daily Friday by Ryan McMaken:
J.C. Chandor, writer and director of 2011’s Wall Street drama Margin Call tackles economics once again with his new film A Most Violent Year. This time, Chandor explores barriers to entrepreneurship in a world dominated by corrupt government, labor unions, and organized crime.
3. From Aristocracy To Monarchy To Democracy
In the following I want to briefly describe a historical puzzle or riddle that I will then try to solve and answer in some detail.
But before that, it is necessary to make a few brief general theoretical observations.
IV. Implications and Outlook
Several implications and suggestions follow from this. First, the theory of social evolution sketched here entails a fundamental criticism of the egalitarianism rampant within the social sciences generally but also among many libertarians. True, economists allow for human “differences” in the form of different labor productivities. But these differences are generally interpreted as the result of different external conditions, i.e., of different endowments or training. Only rarely are internal, biologically anchored characteristics admitted as possible sources of human differences.
III. History Explained
Why did it take so long to get out of the Malthusian trap; and what happened that we finally succeeded? Why did it take so long until we gave up a hunter-gatherer existence in favor of an existence as agricultural settlers? And why, even after the invention of agriculture and animal husbandry, did it take more than another 10,000 years until mankind’s seemingly final escape from the Malthusian trap? Economic theory, or what I have said about it, does not and cannot answer these questions.
