No one forms a firm by acquiring resources for the firm at gunpoint. No one becomes an employee of a firm through conscription or forced labor. Firms are formed, and people join firms, as part of a process of voluntary cooperation that we usually refer to as the market.
It occurred me last weekend that children should not grow up without a thorough exposure to the great cartoon from 1962, "The Jetsons." Its celebration of technology and commerce, its retro-style optimism, its hilarious dovetailing of bourgeois normalcy with gizmo-crazed futurism, its complete absence of political correctness (excluding, of course, the atrocious 1990 movie by the same name) – all combine to make this one of the great cartoon achievements of any time.
Through it all, the libertarian theme was the same: liberty for everyone, legal privileges for no one. This is the essence of a free market, but even today it is a message that no faction within the apparatus of the ruling class wants to hear. No matter how divided the factions are among themselves, they form a united front against the libertarian idea, which is the one thing they find most intolerable.
In the weeks following the terror attacks, calls have come from politicians and journalists to "federalize" airport security by making workers who screen passengers and baggage government employees. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and others in Congress have declared that "passengers won't feel safe again" unless the government takes this step.
Prior to the Keynesian era, recessions were called panics and had durations of about three months. The shortness in duration reflected the lack of interventionism by extra-market authorities. Today, recessions last much longer, as the bad idea that the state should manage the economy has become legitimized.
There is no need to assume anything sinister is at work in the fact that women's incomes are lower than those of men.
There is so much nonsense written about luxury. Yet, Ludwig von Mises has put forth what has to be one of the most cogent, elegant, and sensible theories of luxury ever penned by an economist. It was written more than 70 years ago in his book Liberalism, a timeless exposition of the classical-liberal political philosophy.
I am jealous of Thomas Sowell. He has a genius for the striking fact and the apt analogy. These enable him to present his points in a way that readers will not soon forget.
Everyone complains about bad service. From the airlines to telecommunications, we hear of the increasing number of consumer complaints. Diane Brady, a writer for Business Week, believes that she has the answer to why some of us might believe service is bad. Last year, she informed BW's readers that, once again, capitalism is running amok and now needs the hand of government more than ever to force businesses to properly serve their customers. "Why Service Stinks" told of unfairness abounding as firms go overboard to keep "good" customers and do everything they can to get rid of "bad" ones.
