Martin Van Buren: The American Gladstone
[This article is excerpted from Chapter 6 of Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom, edited by John V. Denson.]
Drug Patents and Welfare
The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics
So Economics Isn’t Enough, Huh?
Robert Murphy, as an Austrian economist, welcomes just about any criticism of the neoclassical mainstream. However, some of the proponents of the newfangled ways often overstep when they criticize “flaws” with basic economic principles.
The Trouble With Axelrod: The Prisoners’ Utility Cannot be Measured or Compared
Mark Crovelli says that it is presumptuous of Axelrod to prescribe all sorts of ways to mitigate the cooperative problems associated with the Prisoner’s Dilemma — when neither he, nor anyone else, knows whether there are such dilemmas.
The Death Wish of the Anarcho-Communists
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.
[This article first appeared in the Libertarian Forum, January 1, 1970.]
Now that the New Left has abandoned its earlier loose, flexible non-ideological stance, two ideologies have been adopted as guiding theoretical positions by New Leftists: Marxism-Stalinism, and anarcho-communism.
Small town tyranny
The Ragbrai is an annual bike ride across Iowa. One of the designated stops happens to be the Coralville/Iowa City area, where I live.
In the mail today was a publication issued by the city of Coralville announcing the rules that would be in effect for the race. One of the rules has to do with outdoor entertainment:
The Case of Government Retirement Programs
A scandal more serious than Enron. Mark A. Pribonic explains.
Game Theory? Oh sure, many people use it all the time
And yet no one can seem to point to a single example of its use. (Thanks Digg.com, where many bloggers said Game Theory is descriptive, not prescriptive.)
Voting with Our Feet? Local Government “Services” and the Supposed Tiebout Effect
The Tiebout Effect (”voting with your feet”) is supposed to provide a market solution that leads to a Pareto-Optimal equilibrium of local government “services.” Not so, writes Jim Fadako: It’s not you choosing the mix of service and tax rate; it’s the school system, or other governmental entity, making the choice for you.
