Profiles

Some freedom-minded people pin their hope for liberty on withdrawing from an unfree world. We might refer to this as "economic secession." Despairing of advancing the cause of liberty in society at large, they hope to be able to secure their own liberty anyway. This approach is doomed to fail,...

People with an enormously wide range of political beliefs can get along peacefully, if they simply recognize each individual's right to form, join, and leave civil associations. As long as membership in a civil association is voluntary, writes Gene Callahan, and no group tries to impose its vision...

Bryan Caplan, in his widely circulated article, "Why I Am Not an Austrian Economist," seemingly has questioned the Austrian contention that choice implies preference. If it can be shown that we choose based on indifference and not preference, the Austrians be shown to be wrong. But can this be...

The fact that supply and demand curves can give us a rough picture of market behavior is an effect of human action, writes Gene Callahan, and certainly not the cause of it. No one acts with the goal of bringing supply and demand into balance. The model-builders are likely to forget this.

Special-interest-group pleading often tries to hide behind supposedly economic arguments. It is important to debunk such arguments as they arise so that the interest group politics can be seen for what it is. In the spirit of Bastiat's Economic Sophisms , Gene Callahan offers the following.