New in Films on Liberty and the State: A Man For All Seasons (1966) This film is about Thomas More (1478-1535) who served the King of England loyally and honestly but was eventually executed for his silent opposition to Henry VIII’s self-aggrandizing moves against the Roman Catholic Church. What makes the film enjoyable to watch, despite the conclusion being well known, is the rigorous, witty character of Thomas More himself, a man of true integrity.

A recent publication by the St. Louis Fed notes the relationship between the belief in hell and economic growth.

What’s really at issue is a matter of history, causality, and faith. Do we owe our high standard of living to the market or the state? That is the question. The interventionists and statists credit the state because they get their causal connections mixed up (and this is because they have not studied economics) and they take a leap of faith to credit the government for things it cannot possibly do. The state from the ancient world to the present has created nothing. It has only taken. The market, on the other hand, delivers more miracles every day than we can count.

Gary North shows how Rothbard always had the ability to go to the central issue in a debate. He wrote clearly. He wrote continuously. He wrote for almost anyone who would give him an opportunity to put an idea in print.

The notion that inflation is harmful is a staple of economic science. But most textbooks underrate the extent of the harm, because they define inflation much too narrowly as a lasting decrease of the purchasing power of money (PPM), and also because they pay scant attention to the concrete forms of inflation. To appreciate the disruptive nature of inflation in its full extent we must keep in mind that it springs from a violation of the fundamental rules of society.

Andy Mukherjee of Bloomberg writes Hayek, Once China’s Poison, Is Now Its Prophet. Hayek, once reviled is now on the desktop of communist party members. Mukherjee explains a classic conundrum of state planning: the planners don’t know how to get the results they want, and because their attempts have uninented consequences they often get the opposite.

From the BBC: “A Japanese company has begun making stab-resistant coats and sweatshirts as fears about public safety rise following a series of gruesome attacks. Madre, the maker, said it was providing the products in response to requests from worried parents.” Read the whole story here