Free Markets

Charles Lindblom is at it again. In God and Man at Yale, William Buckley, Jr.’s indictment of leftist teaching at Yale University written half a century ago,

Professor Roth differs from most of his fellow economists. He finds the philosophical foundations of the standard model of welfare economics grossly deficient, and his book mounts a devastating criticism of the conventional view.

Professor Desai has given us two books in one: a new interpretation of Marxism, and a history of twentieth-century capitalism. I propose to concentrate, with one exception, on the first of these

What a sight: the legislative and executive branches of government celebrating as they impose new criminal codes against corporate fraud, each politician trying to outdo the other in their moral outrage against business. These are people who created and guard what is perhaps the greatest financial fraud of all time, the $2 trillion federal budget.

A Days Inn on Long Island was fined on December 26, 2001 for having engaged in “price gouging” following the September 11 terrorist attacks. With the nation’s airports closed, stranded passengers created a sudden and unexpected rise in demand for lodging.

The alarm raised by mainstream economists that corporate cost cutting will undermine the real foundation of the economy is based on a flawed view of the essence of savings. On the contrary, writes Frank Shostak, cost cutting is an important means in correcting previous erroneous decisions so that real wealth can be generated again.

The Enron scandal fueled the drive for campaign finance reform well enough for a campaign finance reform (CFR) bill to get signed into law. However, immediately after this occurred, various interest groups presented legal challenges to the new legislation based on its questionable compliance with the First Amendment.

When a politician talks of "reform," grab your wallet. As in "welfare reform," for example. For as any hardened inside-the-Beltway observer of dark Washington ways can tell you, "welfare reform" is typically a spin for tightening the screws on the taxpayer and easing welfare access.

At a time when the foundations of freedom are again threatened by collectivist hysteria, we need more books like the new one by Ed Younkins, that do away with the fallacies and reaffirm the tenets of a "just and proper political and economic order that is a true reflection of the nature of man and the world properly understood." 

In economics literature, the rhetoric about "market failure" too often serves as a mask for boundless faith in the power of the state. D.W. MacKenzie examines the case of Joseph Stiglitz, who is always hopeful that government will change under his guidance.