Economics has its big problems, notably Keynesian economics, Marxism, positivism, etc. But we are not alone. Even in the hard sciences, there is an alarming amount of ideological interference with the scientific process. Our friend Robert Bradley recently took a look back 25 years ago when the New York Times still had some scientific backbone.
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In the wake of the Obama administration’s partial normalization of relations with Cuba, proponents of the embargo condemned the move, with National Review publishing an unsigned editorial claiming that allowing Americans to trade freely with the island nation amounts to giving comfort to murderous dictators. NR’s editors concluded with:
As libertarians, we’ve seen it all countless times. A friend or colleague who has been going on and on about how incompetent the government is, will say the exact opposite the second the topic turns to foreign policy.
The basic unit of all economic activity is the uncoerced, free exchange of one economic good for another. Moreover, the decision to engage in exchange is based upon the ordinally ranked subjective preferences of each party to the exchange. To achieve maximum satisfaction from the exchange, each party must have full ownership and control of the good that he wishes to exchange and may dispose of his property without interference from a third party, such as government.
Zimbabwe hit the headlines in the 2000s due to its extraordinary inflation rate, peaking at a monthly rate of 79.6 billion percent in November 2008. The hyperinflation was a result of Robert Mugabe’s government’s printing of excess money in order to finance government corruption as well as involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Derek Thompson of The Atlantic recently wrote about how the evolving music industry is now utilizing modern, mostly online technology to predict which bands and artists will emerge as the next breakthrough acts.
