When impoverished ethnic majorities are empowered by the sudden introduction of full blown democracy, they fall prey with discouraging regularity to demagogues who incite them against the often conspicuous disparity of welfare and privilege between them and the small, exclusive ethnic minorities.
It is always agreeable to be proved right. In an earlier review, I suggested that Thomas Sowell "had a genius for the striking fact and the apt analogy."
The New York Times recently ran a three-part series on a string of tragic industrial accidents at facilities owned by McWane Inc., a large producer of sewer and water pipe based in Alabama. The series describes nine apparently needless and sometimes especially gruesome deaths, as well as several horrendous injuries suffered by workmen. All of them are presented as taking place in an environment of such reckless irresponsibility and callous disregard for the value of human life as to strain credulity.
Our age is dominated by the state and its errors. The state has given us recession and war, while liberty has given us prosperity and peace. Which of the two paths prevails in the end depends on the ideas we hold about freedom, capitalism, and ourselves. May we never forget the great truth: tyranny destroys, while liberty is the mother of all that is beautiful and true in our world.
In tough times, people cling to the words of politicians and the statements of TV's talking heads—the two sources least likely to offer a broad perspective that yields answers. Jeffrey Tucker recommends five books for a clear a historical perspective, a theoretical explanation, a forecast for the future, and an agenda for change.
Cobden saw that free trade was the key to peace and material prosperity, as evidenced by England's economic growth and rise to world leadership in virtually all aspects of trade—finance, insurance, shipping, etc.—after the Corn Law repeal. But more than this, Cobden emphasized the injustice of protectionism.
Proponents of markets often note that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
To read the works of Bastiat is to read economic clarity and logic at its finest. However, numerous examples of the same "broken window fallacies" Bastiat debunked some 150 years ago can be found today in abundant supply. While these neoprotectionist arguments are cloaked in modern language, their core sophisms remain unchanged.
To the extent additional safety comes at a higher cost, it restricts the ability to make provision for other needs and wants, including safety, in other areas of life, writes George Reisman. And this remains true even when the higher costs of safety are initially imposed on business firms rather than directly on consumers.
Those who claim that government is the source of social order say that in its absence there would be violence, chaos, and a low standard of living. But medieval Iceland illustrates an actual and well-documented historical example of how a stateless legal order can work and it provides insights as to how we might create a more just and efficient society today.
