Topic: Economic Education

There’s No Such Thing as Socially Harmful Speculation

– May 10, 2019

Financial markets, including markets for complex instruments that may just look like speculative casino bets, allow important real transactions to occur. And in a brilliantly decentralized way, they bring into harmony people whose information, values, goals, and risk aversion differ.

Economic Education, Video

Where Did AOC Get Her Garbage Disposal?

– May 9, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is from New York, where garbage disposals are not very common in apartments because they were only legalized in the 1990s, as incredible as that seems. But now she lives in D.C., and she has discovered that there is one in her apartment.

Economic Education

An Economy Is Neither a Family Nor a Firm; It Is a Catallaxy

– May 7, 2019

Unlike progressives and conservatives, libertarians judge society and government policy by how well individuals are able to fulfill their goals; libertarians do not suppose that individuals who comprise the large collectives that we call “countries” do or should aim at fulfilling the non-existent higher goals of these large collectives.

Economic Education

The Presidential Political Circus Has Begun

– May 6, 2019

Yes, the greatest political show on earth. It’s just too bad that so few of the performers that are listed on the campaign-program flyers to entertain us have any belief in and policy platforms for advancing individual liberty, free markets, the impartial rule of law, or constitutionally limited government. Still, sit back and watch the show, and experience also being taken for a ride on the collectivism carousel.

Economic Education

My Grandfather’s Disability Led to a Great Career

– May 1, 2019

As a child, I couldn’t figure it out. Why is my grandfather a hero to this vast community of Asian immigrants?

Economic Education

Managing Change Is Harder Than It Seems

– May 1, 2019

Social systems must be able to serve people in periods of stability, by creating predictable patterns of rules and expectations, and to serve people in times of disruption, by fostering innovation and entrepreneurship without breaking down.

Economic Education

This Duke Dropout Could Reinvigorate the Study of Anthropology

– April 30, 2019

Would it be a tragedy if Williamson were an anthropology virtuoso who, in dropping out of Duke and taking his talents to the NBA, eschewed a career of path-breaking, world-rocking anthropological scholarship? No.

Economic Education, Free Markets

In Praise of an Ideology of Freedom

– April 29, 2019

Because free markets typically give to producers as well as to consumers strong incentives to use their unique bits of knowledge in ways that promote the general welfare, that both the knowledge problem and the incentive problem exist at all levels of government decision-making means that what is warranted is a strong and general presumption against government intervention – or, worded differently, what is warranted is an ideology of freedom.

Economic Education

Unangelic Knaves and Projective Paternalists

– April 23, 2019

Many people readily impose their own preferences on others without hesitation or compunction, even when they can communicate freely with the party being imposed upon.

Economic Education

Name the State

– April 4, 2019

The bitter truth about most public policies being sold by the political class is that they give them more power to control our lives. If you favor some of these policies, be honest with the rest of us about what you mean, so that we can make more clear-headed judgments about the kind of society we want to live in.

Economic Education, Unemployment

Maybe Bosses Do Wear Bunny Slippers

– April 3, 2019

There are some clear advantages to the gig economy, for both workers who have specialized skills and for companies trying to remain small and nimble.

Capitalism, Economic Education

Capitalism Saved Sweden

– March 21, 2019

If you think Sweden is socialist, then you know something that just ain’t so.