Many advocates claim government intervention is necessary because markets are too unstable. The real instability, however, comes from the immense uncertainty over what government will do next with its vast and arbitrary power.
Supporters of the universal basic income claim it ends dependence on markets, bosses, family, and bureaucrats. But it doesn't eliminate dependence. It only transfers dependence to the central state.
The classical economists were also nationalists, and they viewed free trade as one of the most important means for advancing the security, prosperity, and cultural achievements of their own nations.
The British opponents of the Corn Laws rightly understood that tariffs and other restrictions on trade are violations of fundamental natural rights, and that they privilege certain entrenched interests at the expense of everyone else.
Occupational licensing may increase quality for some higher income customers. But licensing increases monopoly power for dominant firms while driving lower-income customers out of the marketplace.
The Fed Chairman’s suggestion that the inverse correlation between inflation and unemployment has disappeared reveals that US central bank policymakers were previously employing a bankrupt theoretical framework to navigate the economy.
