Free Markets

State intervention and a crushing fiscal policy made the whole empire groan under the yoke; more than once, both poor men and rich prayed that the barbarians would deliver them from it.

What exchanges take place, and which do not, is affected by how markets are regulated. Black markets and regulated markets have different outcomes than free markets.

There are two clear and present dangers to liberty. One is known as the Left, and the other is the Right. They seek to use government to mold society into a form they seek, rather than the form that liberty achieves if society is left on its own.

According to the usual justification for government regulation of externalities,almost everything we do is ripe for regulation. Even worse, regulators never admit their prohibitions prevent an incalculable number of positive externalities.

Rothbard’s work on welfare economics probably ranks among his least-known achievements, but it is truly a tour de force and another tribute to his great originality and talent as an economist.

Robots are not fundamentally different from other labor-saving innovations, and there's no reason to believe increased innovation will lead to mass unemployment or mass poverty.

Here we see two rival strategies to marketing healthcare services. The status quo is based on insurance payments and price secrecy. Walmart's strategy is based on price competition. 

The resurgent claim that the modern economy was built on slavery is yet another attempt to attack capitalism while also claiming "we are all to blame" for slavery. The slave owners of old tried a very similar tactic.

Population growth and specialization are not enough to make economies grow. The key ingredient is entrepreneurship.

A central benefit of the marketplace is the ability to choose the products and services that the "experts" tell us are not "the best."