Markets Rely on Accurate and Honest Information — But Governments Want the Opposite
Have you ever worked with people you couldn’t trust to tell you the truth? It isn’t pretty. Without the ability to rely on what you’ve been told (or that you’ve been told everything relevant), effective cooperation at almost every margin of choice is reduced, because its foundation has been undermined. A new episode of To Tell the Truth must precede every decision.
Beware of Defense Secretaries Pledging Reform
For the Pentagon, happy days are here again (if they ever left). With a budget totaling more than $1.4 trillion for the next two years, the department is riding high, even as it attempts to set the stage for yet more spending increases in the years to come.
Keynes and the Ethics of Socialism
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 22, no. 2 (Summer 2019) full issue.
ABSTRACT: This paper examines John Maynard Keynes’s ethical theory and how it relates to his politico-economic thought. Keynes’s ethical theory represents an attack on all general rules. Since capitalism is a rule-based social system, Keynes’s ethical theory is incompatible with capitalism. And since socialism rejects the general rules of private property, the Keynesian ethical theory is consistent with socialism.
The Economics of Prison Gangs
Why do prisoners join prison gangs? The answer lies in the fact that, like everyone else, prisoners respond to changes in costs and benefits. If a course of action becomes relatively more costly, people will do less of it — ceteris paribus — and vice versa. Subjective preferences help people decide how to weigh costs and benefits, and these cannot be ignored when looking at peoples’ decisions. It is not helpful to ignore inmates preferences just because we do not share them, and because we are not in a similar situation.
The Bitcoin Standard
Libertarianism(s) versus Postmodernism and ‘Social Justice’ Ideology
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 22, no. 2 (Summer 2019) full issue.
ABSTRACT: This Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Yousif Almoayyed, was given at the Austrian Economics Research Conference at the Mises Institute on March 22, 2019.
