Economic illiteracy is widespread, but why should this be a problem? Ignorance is even more pervasive in microelectronics and computer programming, and yet computer technology is nothing short of astounding.

In most fields of study, people leave science to experts and trust the correctness of their conclusions. Not so for economics: rather than leaving the matter to economists, people hold strong positions that are plainly false. Economic ignorance by itself is not the problem. As Murray Rothbard put it,

“I hate to say it, but before TV people spoke better and were better read than we are,” Terence Winter tells the New York Times.

Econtalk host Russ Roberts interviews author Daniel Pink on the topic Drive, Motivation and Incentives in last week’s podcast. Pink’s message is that a substantial body of empirical evidence shows that people are only motivated to a limited extent by money to increase their production in a work situation. Once employees are paid “enough”, other motivators take over, such as “autonomy, mastery and a sense of purpose.”

Some thoughts I had while listening to this.

[This is an excerpt from an essay that was originally published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, volume 1 (1891).]

The question of the relation of cost to value is properly only a concrete form of a much more general question — the question of the regular relations between the values of such goods as in causal interdependence contribute to one and the same utility for our well-being.

[Journal of Libertarian Studies, 1977.]
 

David Gordon covers new books in economics, politics, philosophy, and law for The Mises Review, the quarterly review of literature in the social sciences, published since 1995 by the Mises Institute. He is author of The Essential Rothbard, Resurrecting Marx, and The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics. He has also edited Secession, State and Liberty and Strictly Confidential

If you were not a scholar then what do you think you would be doing now? Do you have any hobbies?

From the Economist: “America’s universities lost their way badly in the era of easy money. If they do not find it again, they may go the way of GM.”

Edmunds Daily is reporting 10-40% increases in used car prices over last year. H/T J Jacoby.

When tallying up the “total costs” of a government operation, proponents will typically include only the most obvious items, whereas opponents will throw in the kitchen sink. The obvious motivation is to make the operation look relatively cheap (for the proponents) or horribly expensive (for the opponents).

[This is an excerpt from an essay that was originally published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, volume 1 (1891).]