Joseph Stiglitz’s Market-Failure Myth
Thank you, Joseph Stiglitz, for providing so much fodder for free-market economists to use in their classrooms this spring.
Thank you, Joseph Stiglitz, for providing so much fodder for free-market economists to use in their classrooms this spring.
[Preface to Revised Edition of Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, May 1993]
The sharp contrast that Alexis de Tocqueville drew in 1835 between the United States and Tsarist Russia—”the principle of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude”1 —became much sharper after 1917, when the Russian Empire was transformed into the Soviet Union.
[Review of Austrian Economics (1988)]
By around 1900, most people in German-speaking countries were either etatists or state socialists. The dark episode of history known to us as capitalism had run its course once and for all. The future belonged to the state. The state would take over all enterprise suitable for nationalization and the rest would be regulated in a way that would prevent businessmen from exploiting workers and consumers. Since the fundamental laws of economics were as yet unknown, the problems presented by interventionism could not be seen. Had they been recognized, everyone would have opted for socialism.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada re-publishes my review of Jeffrey Friedman’s and Wladimir Kraus’ Engineering the Financial Crisis.