[Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World. By Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell.  Regnery Publishing, 2019. 192 pages.]

The great 19th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat once argued that “between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference — the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen, and also of those which it is necessary to foresee.” Being an avowed socialist, it is little wonder that Bernie Sanders falls into the category of a bad economist, however, his recently released housing plan

The words ‘economy’ and ‘ecology’ have shared roots, both stemming from the Greek word oikos (οἶκος) for “house”. ‘Economy’ adds the suffix ‘nemein’ (νέμειν), for “manage”, creating ‘oikonomia’ for “household management”, or more commonly the “ the management of material resources ”, whereas ‘logia’ (λόγια) at the end of ‘ecology’ means “the study of”.

“Dreary as all get-out.” That’s how National Post columnist Chris Selley describes Canada’s 43rd federal election (October 21). He says “None of the above” (NOTA) should be on the ballot, and he’s right. NOTA should be on the ballot. But what if NOTA wins the election? Then what? Selley doesn’t say, but I will.

Politicians habitually promise us greater economic prosperity, but their official policies usually contradict their promises. And if you dare to point out this contradiction, you will be ignored, as happened recently in London, Ontario.

First, let’s consider the source of economic prosperity.

Profits are sales minus costs. The costs reflect expenditures of money made in the past, sometimes, as in the case of depreciation on buildings, decades in the past. In contrast, the sales reflect money spent in the present, or at least in the current year.

To the extent that the quantity of money and thus volume of spending in the economic system increase over time, sales increase correspondingly, which means that profits increase correspondingly, because the costs are determined by expenditures already made.

Consumers do not gain because there are many producers of the same good, the number is irrelevant. They also do not gain from firms competing with each other, their strategies matter little. Consumers gain from production directed toward value creation.

We have been taught that competition “is” many actors trying to do exactly the same thing, which “forces” them to outdo each other. But it is a simplification that gets very close to being a lie.

As a co-host (along with Tom Woods) of the podcast Contra Krugman, I spend a lot of my time contrasting the typical Keynesian approach with that of the Austro-libertarian. And as fun as that is, it’s even more interesting to show how Austrians differ from another market-friendly paradigm, namely the “Law & Economics” paradigm associated with the Chicago School and UCLA.

I haven’t run an empirical study on the number of articles published, but it sure seems like conservatives are writing more articles than usual condemning economic freedom, and the people who advocate for it. This would make some sense in the Age of Trump when the the president has pushed the right’s policy agenda more in the direction of protectionism and runaway federal spending that makes the Obama Administration look almost fiscally responsibly by comparison. The right wing no longer talks about cuts to social spending.