This fascinating 4-minute whiteboard-illustrated talk by Steven Johnson highlights the crucial role of the free exchange of information and ideas–learning and collaborating, sharing and building on others’ contributions–in innovation. And it shows, indirectly, why intellectual property, in seeking to restrict learning and the flow of information, is an impediment to innovation.
The National Credit Union Administration has packaged $50 billion of distressed securities for sale as $35 billion in government guaranteed bonds in order to bail-out the non-profit sector of the banking industry. Bloomberg reports, “Credit unions in the U.S. may absorb as much as $9.2 billion in losses over the next decade as the industry strives to recover from sour investments in real estate and consumer loans, U.S. regulators said today.”
[From Anything That’s Peaceful: The Case for the Free Market, 1964]
As I sat contemplating the miraculous make-up of an ordinary lead pencil, the thought flashed in mind: I’ll bet there isn’t a person on earth who knows how to make even so simple a thing as a pencil.
[Excerpted from chapter 10 of Theory and History.]
As historicism sees it, the essential error of economics consists in its assumption that man is invariably egoistic and aims exclusively at material well-being.
[Excerpted from an edited transcript of “Ideology and Theories of History,” the first in a series of six lectures, given in 1986, on the history of economic thought.]
The orthodox historiography of economic thought starts as follows: There were a bunch of mercantilists running around, talking about specific things like sugar. Should the government keep bullion in the realm? Should we have tariffs?
