Topic: Books

Why Adam Smith Would Have Been a Baseball Fan

– November 12, 2023

“A player who fails with the bat two out of three times becomes a superstar. Likewise, a market economy also creates the possibility of failure.” ~Paul McDonnold

Authoritarianism, Books, Classical Liberalism, Philosophy

Can We Pass Adam Smith’s Finger Test?

– November 11, 2023

“We have allowed our institutions to be hijacked by illiberal authoritarians posing as humanists. Should it surprise us that morality is in short supply?” ~Barry Brownstein

Books, History, Podcast

Liberty Curious The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights

– November 2, 2023

“The New Deal Welfare state is among the tools that are used, at other times, to control people and to limit their speech.” ~David T. Beito

Books, Classical Liberalism, Free Trade, Regulation

Not Only to No Single Person, But to No Council or Senate Whatever

– October 18, 2023

“Some Republicans’ apparent assumption that the American economy would benefit if American companies operated fully within the US badly misperceives the basic realities of globalized trade.” ~David B. McGarry

Books, Economic History, Free Markets

What is a Pencil?

– October 15, 2023

“The spontaneous order produced in a market or, in this case, the outcome of a market process that standardizes what a pencil means, is only defined as the process unfolds.” ~Byron B. Carson III

Art and Culture, Books, Policy, Taxation

Thomas Sowell, Social Justice Fallacies

– October 3, 2023

“We might agree that ‘equal chances for all’ would be desirable. But that in no way guarantees that we have either the knowledge or the power required to make that goal attainable.” ~Gary M. Galles

Books, Economic History, Education, Philosophy

Adam Smith’s Great Power Politics in One Paragraph

– October 1, 2023

“It is said that an armed society is a polite society. Smith, by analogy, suggests that an international cosmos of armed nations will be a polite international cosmos.” ~Daniel B. Klein

Art and Culture, Books, Property Rights, Regulation

An Insider Untangles the Causes of the Financial Crisis in American Cities

– October 1, 2023

“Balancing budgets without reassessing what municipal governments should or should not do, and the long-term benefits and costs of their activities is insufficient.” ~Jason Sorens & Robertas Bakula

Books, Economic History, Education, Policy

Academic Lies about Free-Market Economists

– September 23, 2023

“They treat history as ‘an armoury from which to ransack politically expedient weapons.’ In the process of that ransacking, they cross the line into willful misrepresentations of their source material, all in the service of a modern-day political cause. ” ~Phillip W. Magness

Authoritarianism, Books, Philosophy, Science

A Noted Physician Advocates COVID Civil Disobedience

– September 22, 2023

“Even without cronyism showing the way, ineffective and dangerous drugs are not uncommon in the annals of medicine.” ~Barry Brownstein

Books, Economic History, History, Philosophy

Nothing Was “Normal” on the Other Side of the Wall

– September 19, 2023

“Nothing was ‘normal’ about the totalitarian life in socialist GDR, if by ‘normal’ we mean pursuit of human happiness and fulfilment.” ~Robertas Bakula and Luis Carlos Araujo Quintero

Art and Culture, Authoritarianism, Books, Media

Orwell Exposed the Cowardice of Journalists and Intellectuals

– September 15, 2023

“Orwell warned, ‘It is the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it.’” ~Barry Brownstein