Research Reports: April 4, 2011
Markets Can Ease the Food Crisis
With proper incentives, developing nations can profit from higher prices.
by Craig J. Richardson, PhD, Visiting Research Fellow
Higher Tax Rates Won’t Fix Deficits
History has shown that increasing the tax burden of the rich would have little impact on cutting the deficit. Instead, it slows growth.
by Julie Ni Zhu, Research Intern
Ask the Expert: Health Savings Accounts
by Kevin T. McGrath, CPA, a tax partner with BST Advisors, LLC.
Business-Cycle Conditions, April 2011
The Consumer Returns, But Timidly
People are spending more and cautiously borrowing. But no clear engine of growth has emerged to drive the still-modest recovery.
by Polina Vlasenko, PhD, Research Fellow
RR20110404
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History has shown that increasing the tax burden of the rich would have little impact on cutting the deficit. Instead, it slows growth.
by Julie Ni Zhu, Research Intern
Ask the Expert: Health Savings Accounts
by Kevin T. McGrath, CPA, a tax partner with BST Advisors, LLC.
Business-Cycle Conditions, April 2011
The Consumer Returns, But Timidly
People are spending more and cautiously borrowing. But no clear engine of growth has emerged to drive the still-modest recovery.
by Polina Vlasenko, PhD, Research Fellow
RR20110404
[js-disqus]
No items found
People are spending more and cautiously borrowing. But no clear engine of growth has emerged to drive the still-modest recovery.
by Polina Vlasenko, PhD, Research Fellow RR20110404
Related Articles –
Equality / Inequality Issue
The Harwood Economic Review
Summer 2019
Table of Contents
Economics Has Neglected Inequality? Absurdly Untrue
Phillip W. Magness and Vincent Geloso
How Capitalist-Abolitionists Fought Slavery
Phillip W. Magness
New Evidence that Soaring Inequality is a Myth
Phillip W. Magness
Wealth Has Never Been More Equal
Jeffrey A. Tucker
When Democracy Becomes a Threat to Liberty
Richard M. Ebeling
Monetary Institutions and the Rule of Law
Alexander Salter
Have Two-Income Households Made Us Poorer?
Donald J. Boudreaux
Listen to AIER Every Day
Jeffrey A. Tucker
Vincent Geloso
Vincent Geloso, senior fellow at AIER, is an assistant professor of economics at King’s University College. He obtained a PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics.
Phillip W. Magness
Phil Magness is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is the author of numerous works on economic history, taxation, economic inequality, the history of slavery, and education policy in the United States.
Donald J. Boudreaux
Donald J. Boudreaux is a senior fellow with American Institute for Economic Research and with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; a Mercatus Center Board Member; and a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University. He is the author of the books The Essential Hayek, Globalization, Hypocrites and Half-Wits, and his articles appear in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, US News & World Report as well as numerous scholarly journals. He writes a blog called Cafe Hayek and a regular column on economics for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Boudreaux earned a PhD in economics from Auburn University and a law degree from the University of Virginia.
Jeffrey A. Tucker
Jeffrey A. Tucker is Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research. He is the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and eight books in 5 languages, most recently The Market Loves You. He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture. He is available for speaking and interviews via his email. Tw | FB | LinkedIn
Alexander W. Salter
Alexander W. Salter is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business and the Comparative Economics Research Fellow with the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. His research interests include the political economy of central banking, NGDP targeting, and free (laissez-faire) banking. He has published articles in leading scholarly journals, including the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Journal of Financial Services Research, and Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance. His popular work have appeared in RealClearPolitics and U.S. News and World Report.
Salter earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics at George Mason University and his B.A. in Economics at Occidental College. He was an AIER Summer Fellowship Program participant in 2011.
Edward Peter Stringham
Edward Peter Stringham is President of the American Institute for Economic Research, Davis Professor of Economic Organizations and Innovation at Trinity College, and editor of the Journal of Private Enterprise. He is editor of two books and author of more than seventy journal articles, book chapters, and policy studies. His work has been discussed in 15 of the top 20 newspapers in the United States and on more than 100 broadcast stations including MTV. Stringham is a frequent guest on BBC World, Bloomberg Television, CNBC, and Fox, and Rise Global ranks Stringham as one of the top 100 most influential economists in the world.
He earned his B.A. from College of the Holy Cross in 1997, his Ph.D. from George Mason University in 2002 , and first published with the American Institute for Economic Research in 2003. His book, Private Governance: Creating Order in Economic and Social Life, is published by Oxford University Press
Richard M. Ebeling
Richard M. Ebeling, an AIER Senior Fellow, is the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel, in Charleston, South Carolina. Ebeling lived on AIER’s campus from 2008 to 2009.
Related Articles – Harwood Economic Review
Marx vs. Mises Video: Text and Commentary
MARX
Workers of the world — ASSEMBLE!
It’s time for the ruling classes to tremble.
I’m the people’s hero, the MVP:
M – A – R – X! Yeah, you know me!
Let’s go back to when men were free.
We hunted and gathered communally.
But get ready, ’cause here comes the twist,
A villain appears, called a “capitalist”.
He puts the proletariat — that’s US — in chains,
exploits our labor, and pockets the gains.
Through slick ads he tricks lads and ladies in kind,
selling fake needs he poisons our hearts and minds.
He rots our soul through alienation
pursuing limitless accumulation.
He works us into an early grave,
through debt, steals back the money we save.
Greed is the gospel! Profit? GOD.
The rich get richer through graft and fraud.
The poor get poorer, but YOU don’t care.
Doesn’t that sound laissez unfair?
200 years I’ve been singing this song,
Now my chorus is 99% strong.
The revolution’s here. It’s time to repent.
Your moment is over — your capital’s SPENT!
CHORUS
This is history’s lesson
You think he’s right, I’m guessin’?
All we want is progression.
Without bourgeois oppression.
So we look for the truth,
As we tighten our boots.
Who’s right, who’s wrong?
Left, right, left, now the march is on.
MISES
Guten Tag, Marx, nice to meet ya,
My name’s Ludwig: call me “Teacher.”
The master of markets, the Austrian boss,
You don’t like profits? Well let’s talk LOSS!
The problem with your plan is NOBODY wins —
except Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh,
Lenin, Mugabe — remember Berlin?
They built a wall to keep THEIR people IN!
Your theories have a rotten foundation,
built on control, not cooperation.
Centralized power completely corrupts —
real people suffer, violence erupts.
Your system depends on the very same people
you decry as greedy, bourgeois and evil.
If we’re not fit to run our own lives,
why would you expect our votes to be wise?
If you really want to help people rise up,
Unleash the free market: lift their lives up!
It was capitalism, not a socialist plan,
Saved billions in India, China, Japan.
Everyone has a unique purpose and plan —
No one solution can serve the whole land.
Each individual has their own voice.
The heart of my theory is freedom and choice.
CHORUS
This is history’s lesson
The market’s a blessing (yeah right)
Let’s pursue our expression
Living free from aggression
So we look for the truth
With the freedom to choose
Who’s right, who’s wrong?
Left, right, left, now the march is on!
MARX
Free Marketeers love to play this game:
Mao kills millions, Marx gets blamed.
It’s deceptive, dishonest, plain unfair.
Did I drive the tanks at Tiananmen Square?!
Man, I’m a humanist! You can check my receipts!
But you gotta break eggs if you wanna eat.
Don’t like violence? Admit defeat!
Then I’ll call this revolution complete.
Till then? Let’s get a few things straight:
I’m not shaping the future, I’m embracing our fate.
My utopian forebears weren’t that specific,
But this analysis is highly scientific.
Every social system has governing laws.
Capitalism? DOOMED, because
the system generated its own fatal flaws
by uniting workers in a common cause.
Thanks to you, we have all the wealth we need
to seize control, and eradicate greed.
The people are rejecting your bourgeois lies —
REAL Marxism has never been tried.
Equality is the core of my creed —
from this one’s ability, to that one’s need.
Our healthcare, finance, and industry.
Let’s collectivize, and set ourselves FREE!
MISES
Your standard refrain: “Oh that’s not the real thing”
The most common verse all your followers sing
The closer we get to your ideal system
The further we go down the road to serfdom!
The empirical record can’t be denied,
Your ideas don’t work… but they just won’t die!
ATTENTION: this is not breaking news
Jevons and Menger lit that fuse
Now here comes the bomb via Von Bohm-Bawerk
He blew up your system, exposed the core quirk.
The heart of your theory is exploitation
of surplus value — that’s a bogus equation!
You can’t explain value by measuring the cost
of labor. That theory of value has lost favor!
Value is subjective by every measure:
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
There’s no exploitation if two people arrange
voluntary exchange, man, that’s not deranged!
That bourgeois transaction you diss with a scoff
creates benefit for both so we’re both better off.
Here’s the real problem, the crucial equation:
without private markets, there’s no calculation
to coordinate courses, allocate resources,
incentivize choices — because it lacks prices.
What crops should I grow? Where should this factory go?
How should I pick a J.O.(B)? How would your planners ever know!?
Your “theory” is a bundle of confusion…
Socialism got crushed by the marginal revolution!
CHORUS
This is history’s lesson
All we want is progression
Let’s pursue our expression
Living free from aggression
So we look for the truth
As we tighten our boots
Who’s right, who’s wrong?
Left, right, left, now the march is on.
MARX
We’re all better off?! Are you kidding me, Mises?!
My immiseration thesis tears you to pieces.
Your economy grows but not our wages.
You call that progress? I think it’s outrageous.
MISES
In 1820 everyone was poor,
until capitalism kicked down the door.
Real wage growth, not stagnation,
saved 80% of the world from starvation.
MARX
You kicked down the door, but you locked us out.
That’s what your “free market” is all about.
Here’s what you do: on your next shopping spree,
pick up this book by my boy Tommy P.
MISES
The pie can get bigger, it’s not zero-sum.
Free markets have lifted the lowest incomes!
If you really want to help out the poorest nations,
encourage peace, trade and immigration!
MARX
The earth is boiling and your solution
is more production, more pollution?!
More cheap trinkets in bigger malls,
more fossil fuels, more aerosols?!
For a problem this big we need total control —
a green new deal to save the north pole.
We can’t gamble the future on anarchy.
Greed’s not a plan, it’s insanity!
MISES
Your story’s bombastic, your rhetoric’s strong.
There’s only one problem: your theory is wrong!
The wealthiest countries do the most to conserve,
haven’t you heard of the Kuznets curve?
Only wealthy societies can afford to go green.
If you want a better world: see the unseen.
Even carbon will bend to creative destruction,
with entrepreneurship in the means of production.
CHORUS
This is history’s lesson
The market’s a blessing
All we want is progression
Living free from aggression
So we look for the truth
With the freedom to choose
Who’s right, who’s wrong?
Left, right, left, now the march is on!
MARX
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,
the long march of history will come to an end.
Hegel was close, but too a priori,
watch me break down my dialectical story.
Proletariat, bourgeoisie.
Them versus us, you versus me.
Slave, master, lord and serf.
New class battles, same old turf.
We have what we need to throw the chains off us,
Organize the economy like the post office.
The state takes over, but that’s not the whole plan.
Watch it whither away and leave socialist man!
Our goal is true fairness, outcomes that are equal.
Capitalism? OVER. Here’s a socialist sequel:
revolution’s coming, prepare for the fight.
Workers of the world, U-U-U-U-Unite!
MISES
Nothing is determined, You’re so fatalistic!
A grand theory of history?! Be realistic!
Your failed predictions? A distraction!
Here’s some questions that guide human action:
Where are we going, what’s the right course?
What will motivate us? Incentives or force?
Here’s what you miss from commanding heights:
each person’s gifts and individual rights.
Across every continent, culture and creed,
people have flourished ONLY when freed
to find passion, profit, charity and love
through the shake of a hand, not a boot from above.
Socialism’s record isn’t hard to parse.
First it was tragedy, now it’s a farce.
Let’s unite people from every nation
in peace, exchange and cooperation.
