Topic: Capitalism

As Trust Withers, So Will Humanity’s Progress

– May 30, 2020

“Government is tearing asunder a network of human relationships, a network of exchange fueled by love and trust. For the sake of humanity, by our choices, we must put it back together by our uncoerced and mutual regard for people.” ~ Barry Brownstein

Capitalism, Crisis

Dear Nail-Biting Lockdown Lovers: Capitalism Makes Your Choice Possible

– May 28, 2020

“All you nail-biting lockdown lovers can’t have it both ways. You can’t demand strict sheltering-in-place while also lamenting soaring billionaire net worth; that is, unless you think you could have easily quarantined in 2000. In which case you’re not just self-righteous, you’re also dishonest.” ~ John Tamny

Capitalism, Crisis, Regulation

Financial Markets Work Without Coercion

– May 26, 2020

“Coercion is sure to diminish the positive contributions that financial markets make to the larger economy. Even worse, such coercion would violate the rights of the property owners whose voluntary choices give rise to financial markets.” ~ Donald Boudreaux

Capitalism, Crisis

Liberalism Was Born and Grew During Centuries of Pandemics

– May 26, 2020

“Liberalism, as we know it today, was formed not in recent times of peace and prosperity, but in the crucible of the 1600s and 1700s. Indeed, some authors trace liberalism’s roots all the way back to the fall of the Roman Empire.” ~ Jon Murphy

Capitalism, Crisis

Local Charity Is the Best Charity in the Time of COVID

– May 9, 2020

If you feel compelled to help others, leverage your local knowledge. Understand that the free market historically has been one of the greatest deliverers of social welfare in human history.

Capitalism, Crisis

Capitalism Is Still Working, Thank Goodness

– April 10, 2020

Economists rarely get to run field experiments for the whole economy. And thank goodness for that, because field experiments can be very damaging. But the coronavirus that every American has been dealing with for the last month has given us as close to a field experiment as we’re ever likely to get.

Capitalism, Crisis

No, Capitalism Did Not Fail

– April 7, 2020

Riding out storms and sharing risks across billions of people is a feature, not a bug, and the affluent capitalist nature of our institutions puts us in a better position to deal with them.

Capitalism

A Government That Does Everything Can’t Do Anything Well

– March 30, 2020

The often-prescient Tyler Cowen commented not long ago that libertarianism, if it is to grow as a political movement, should embrace arguments for expanding state capacity in some areas. He named this approach “State Capacity Libertarianism” (SCL). I’m …

Capitalism, Regulation

Of Course Capitalism Can Save Nature

– March 6, 2020

Various schemes have turned rhinos and other scenic African animals from victims of the tragedy of the commons to valuable commodities that hunters and farmers and former poachers sustain, in no small part thanks to ecotourism.

Capitalism, Socialism

Are We Seriously Debating Capitalism vs. Socialism Again?

– February 22, 2020

Socialism is a movement not of the working classes but of the elites, born of arrogance, snobbery, and preposterous pretense, kept alive not from lived experience but the astonishing capacity of an ideologically soaked brain to live in denial of reality.

Capitalism, History

The New History of Capitalism Has a “Whiteness” Problem

– December 10, 2019

Thus do we arrive at the unenviable position where scholars in the New History of Capitalism genre are guilty of the very same faults that they invoke to dismiss critics of the 1619 Project.

Capitalism, Economic Education

The Great Redistribution: Who Benefits From Ruthless Capitalism?

– November 25, 2019

The two ugliest entries in America’s anti-capitalist vocabulary might be “ruthless capitalism” and “speculation.” Ruthless — or any other distasteful adjective of your choosing — capitalism is a mythical kind of heartless profit seeking where owners an …