From Liberty:
It is therefore with great pleasure that I hail the publication of a book of essays by Leland Yeager, a distinguished economist and longtime contributor to Liberty. Confronted by Yeager’s additions to learning, the rest of us should feel like small boys. Yet we have something to hail.
In my article “Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide,” I noted that for some time I’ve thought of putting together some material into an “argumentation-ethics reader” book.
Here’s how we got saddled with this monstrosity.
What is the logical status of typical economic propositions such as the law of marginal utility (that whenever the supply of a good whose units are regarded as of equal serviceability by a person increases by one additional unit, the value attached to this unit must decrease as it can only be employed as a means for the attainment of a goal that is considered less valuable than the least valuable goal previously satisfied by a unit of this good) or of the quantity theory of money (that whenever the quantity of money is increased while the demand for money to be held in cash reserve on hand
In recent decades the public-choice school has been applying economic analysis to political institutions and activities. People are fundamentally the same in government as in private life. In trying to achieve their purposes (which need not be narrowly egoistic ones), individuals respond to opportunities and incentives. The specifics of these are different in politics than in the marketplace of business.
[Economic Controversies (20011). This paper was originally published by FEE in 1957.]
What I have to say may, I think, best be developed by looking at a typical instance that illustrates price determination through social control in a particularly noticeable manner: the case of the settlement of wage disputes by means of a strike.
