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David Skarbek on Prison Order

“At best Skarbek has illustrated how governance institutions can be analyzed, providing us with a fascinating case study of prison life in a dozen settings. A bit more charitably, governance theory applied to prisons is not falsified by the examples he uses. Whether he has proven the usefulness of the theory, or its ability to explain the observed world, is much less clear.” ~ Joakim Book

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What Drives Progress: The State or the Market?

“The idea of an entrepreneurial state as proposed by Mazzucato is a romantic one. It’s an idea that people can come together and through sheer will can make innovation happen. That some very smart people with fancy degrees and prestigious titles can steer society to an optimal location. The only problem with that is just about everything.” ~ Ethan Yang

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Why Politics Breeds Divisive Fears and Angers

“Politics becomes a life and death struggle, a fight to the finish, since the winning side with the majority upper hand is able to impose and enforce its views and values on all in society. Only by limiting government to those few though essential functions can these tensions, angers, and divisions be reduced or even removed.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

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It Was a Mistake to Close Schools, UK Study Concedes

“In nine months of this hell, one might suppose there would have been a clear test of whether and to what extent severe outcomes from catching the virus were really associated with school attendance. It has finally arrived, and the news is not good for the lockdowners.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

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For Better Health and a Stronger Economy, Don’t Lock Down Again

“Instead of following Europe into a second round of lockdowns, the United States should follow the advice of the top scientists and medical experts who have signed the Great Barrington Declaration. They advise avoiding lockdowns and focusing instead on protecting the most vulnerable, letting the disease spread among the young and healthy to build population immunity.” ~ Benjamin Powell

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Sweden’s “Dry Tinder” Accounts for Many Covid-19-deaths

“People have been criticizing Sweden’s health and elder care, but the failures of the Covid-19 period are in large part a reflection of the successes during the runup. Swedes did a great job in the two-year runup to March 2020 and were then punished by Covid-19. The data are clear: In understanding Covid-19-death tolls, ‘dry tinder’ is a major factor.” ~ Jonas Herby

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Agreeing and Disagreeing with Tyler Cowen on Covid-19

“By failing to take account of Covid’s differential impact on people according to their age, governments have compromised their credibility. By falsely treating everyone from kindergartners through college students and even middle-aged folks in normal health as if they all are as imperiled by Covid as are residents of nursing homes, governments signal a disregard for relevant facts. They reveal that they’ll seize upon any crisis, inflate it opportunistically, and use it as an excuse to grab more power regardless of the underlying realities.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

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Let a Billion Preferences Bloom

“Mass customization and diversity are commercial society’s virtues. Mass regimentation and uniformity are political society’s vices. The stark contrast is clear in the proximity between Halloween and Election Day.” ~ Art Carden

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