Topic: Government

Association, Causation, Expectations, and Caveat Civis

– July 18, 2022

“We must recognize that in our current circumstances, honesty requires any serious answer (at least part) to involve ‘it depends,’ not the plethora of ‘trust me; follow my plan, because I know what to do’ from beltway snake oil salesmen.” ~ Gary M. Galles

Art and Culture, Government, Technology

Who Is To Blame in the Moral Marketing Game

– July 17, 2022

“If we want companies to stop engaging in woke-washing, we must steer the incentives back toward supporting firms for their core offerings and stop basing our purchases according to cause-related marketing messages and social labels.” ~ Kimberlee Josephson

Books, Government, History

Revisiting the Sage of Monticello

– July 17, 2022

“Kidd has written an excellent moral and spiritual biography of Thomas Jefferson. Contrary to those who claim Jefferson was a secular rationalist, he shows that the Sage of Monticello took Christianity seriously even as he rejected key tenets of orthodoxy.” ~ Mark David Hall

Government, Public Choice and Public Policy, Taxation

Is Wokeness the New Sumptuary Laws?

– July 16, 2022

“A truly free and socially-egalitarian society will reject sumptuary taxes, no matter what form they take. Awake to the woke, and reject how it’s spoke.” ~ Anthony Gill

Free Markets, Government, Regulation

Rethinking Regulatory Capture

– July 16, 2022

“Stigler concluded that regulatory agencies are captured by the firms they regulate. Still, ultimately, it is the regulated firms that become captured by the legislators and regulators who have the power to terminate their regulatory protections.” ~ Randall G. Holcombe

Free Markets, Government, Regulation

Five Negative Consequences of Price Ceilings

– July 15, 2022

“The public often supports price ceilings – support that would surely disappear if the public understood the basic economics of this harmful government intervention.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Free Markets, Government, Policy

The Problem of Policymaker Ignorance

– July 14, 2022

“Policymakers are forever in search of causal knowledge and powers – to both know enough and be capable of bringing about specific states of social affairs – that no mortal can possess.” ~ Scott Scheall

Classical Liberalism, Government, History, Philosophy

The Rule of Law

– July 13, 2022

“The rule of law gives warrant to liberalism. We should better learn to expound on how liberalism promotes the rule of law and how the governmentalization of social affairs tends to destroy the rule of law.” ~ Daniel B. Klein

Crisis, Government, International, War and Peace

US Celebrates Alliance With Seoul: But Is South Korea Worth a Nuclear War?

– July 12, 2022

“Absent a miraculous deus ex machina, the North will soon be able to destroy American cities. This requires Washington to consider the unthinkable: acquiescing to if not encouraging South Korean development of its own nuclear deterrent.” ~ Doug Bandow

Art and Culture, Government, History

Rule, Britannia?

– July 11, 2022

“Will a sense of British identity prevail over the ambitions of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish nationalists? That is unclear. Perhaps the better question is whether enough people in England will even care.” ~ Samuel Gregg

Crisis, Free Markets, Government

Make America Free Again (MAFA)

– July 10, 2022

“The policy path to MAFA is clear, deregulate everything from Amtrak to monetary policy, while reinvigorating the Third Sector (nonprofits) and forming a Ministry of Truth to police all claims, and only claims, made by governments, government officials, and politicians.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Art and Culture, Crisis, Government

Black American Identity, Family, and Religion: An Interview with Glenn Loury

– July 10, 2022

“Racial disparity is really only a derivative result of the larger social abandonment of a set of norms which manifests itself most immediately and most severely in the African American population, but which really is a larger question for all Americans.” ~ Glenn Loury & Alexander Riley