The Best Work of Its Kind Since Rothbard’s For a New Liberty
[Libertarianism Today • By Jacob H. Huebert • Praeger, 2010 • Vii + 254 pages]
If a Pure Market Economy Is So Good, Why Doesn’t It Exist?
If a pure market economy is so good, why does it not already exist? If governments are so bad, why are they dominant throughout the world today? Indeed, is the widespread adoption of free markets ever likely to occur?
Bad Monetary Policy Is Redundant
A great thinker once wrote that “all things useful are of such a nature that where there is too much of them they must either do harm, or at any rate be of no use, to their possessors.”1
Democracy and Laissez-Faire: A New York Case Study
Well back in its history, in the late 1830s, New York State was spending and lending money lavishly. By the early 1840s, the rapidly mounting debt had occasioned a severe financial crisis. To avert the imminent possibility of bankruptcy and default, the state legislature in 1842 passed what was known as “the stop and tax law,” a levy of one mill on each dollar of taxable property. The new revenue helped the state meet its most pressing obligations.
My Open Letter to Paul Krugman: Spend ALL of Your Income!
As one who loves consistency, I have urged Paul Krugman in my Krugman-in-Wonderland post today to be consistent with what he preaches and spend all of his income. If he wants to “invest” or “save,” he can buy government bonds, since the government is spending everything it gets these days.
What’s the Right Thing to Do?
It is easy to see why Michael Sandel is a popular Harvard professor. He presents major ideas of ethics and political philosophy in a clear way, tied to important contemporary issues. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, based on a famous course that Sandel teaches, offers a discussion of what Sandel regards as the three main competing views of justice.
Blind to the Flaws of Keynesianism
Blinder is arguing that of course the Obama stimulus worked, because spending money creates jobs, period. To see just how naive this view is, consider that there is nothing in Blinder’s argument restricting it to cases of severe recession.
Patriotism as a Threat to Capitalism
[From The Case for Legalizing Capitalism]
Having learned that the government acts in ways detrimental to its citizens economically, and by causing wars, we should ask exactly why we support our politicians, why we support most of our military operations, and why we support our very national identity. In short, we should ask ourselves why we are patriotic.
The State’s “Inception” Fails
Lew Rockwell explains that government-planned prosperity was only a dream. Massive unemployment and failing industries are the reality. Stimulus is just hitting the snooze button.
Powell Versus Farm Subsidies
Here’s Suffolk University economist Benjamin Powell on farm subsidies and their effect on poor countries (like recently-decimated-by-flooding Pakistan. A question: is low volatility in food prices explained by protectionism and subsidies, or is it explained by prosperity? My hypothesis is that the US and Europe have stable food supplies and low price volatility because (a) we’re extremely wealthy and (b) we have extremely well-developed financial markets.
