Category:Basic Economics

December 20, 2021 | Post

Here’s a brainbuster for you: The product on the left will help keep you alive for 6-8 weeks. It costs $4.49. The other is nothing more than pretty to look at. It costs $161. Why? This paradox — the water-diamond paradox — troubled some of the world’s greatest minds. Plato wondered about it; Copernicus and […]

November 4, 2021 | Post

This is the second of Learn Liberty’s “Legends” series. Read our first, on Ayn Rand, HERE. He never won a Nobel Prize. He never wrote a New York Times bestseller. In the history books, he doesn’t sit alongside Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek as all-time great economists. He doesn’t even have an […]

April 28, 2021 | Video

Between Outtakes is a series of videos from various public intellectuals and their opinions about current issues from a pro-Liberty point of view.

In this first video, we invited Prof. Nigel Ashford, Senior Programs Officer at the Institute for Humane Studies, to give his perspective on the discussion of Brexit within libertarian circles. He explains why the support for the Brexit referendum of leaving the European Union is not unanimous between libertarians and gives his personal view on the matter.

January 25, 2018 | Post

From the American point of view, technology and trade are the same. From the human point of view, trade is better.

January 10, 2018 | Post

Charging “prices” does not a market make.

November 28, 2017 | Post

On the first day of my economics classes, I tell my students that if they saw my paychecks that they would realize the school is exploiting me.

October 23, 2017 | Video

Remember the mid-2000s housing crash that wiped out homeowners? Well, there’s another bubble getting ready to pop, and this one’s in student debt. Prof. Antony Davies explains.

October 2, 2017 | Video

If you really want to understand how the world works today, you need to rethink almost everything you’ve been told about inequality. Prof. Antony Davies explains.

September 14, 2017 | Video

What a rip-off! Here’s what you’re really paying for when you buy the stuff you want. Watch more with Professor Dan Russell.

September 11, 2017 | Video

Behavioral economics helps you understand dating, partying, college loans, voter ignorance, and all the choices humans make. Here’s our full series.

September 7, 2017 | Video

Marx wanted to end inequality, but he said redistributing wealth was the wrong way to do it. Watch more with Dr. Russell.

August 31, 2017 | Video

To make sense of Karl Marx or even Adam Smith, you need to see the way they looked at prices — through the labor theory of value.

August 24, 2017 | Video

How can poor countries escape poverty? They need more than foreign aid. They need a legal system that lets them represent their assets, exchange stuff, and make each other rich.

August 17, 2017 | Video

Why do we have property instead of just sharing everything? Native peoples’ property rights in North America can give us a clue.

August 16, 2017 | Video

When politicians raise taxes on the rich, what do the rich do to protect their $$$? This Prof. shows how high taxes actually made America less equal.

August 10, 2017 | Video

Property rules don’t explain everything. Sometimes, you need liability instead. Read Calabresi and Melamed’s groundbreaking paper here.

August 3, 2017 | Video

Here’s how private property and appropriation can save us from the tragedy of the commons — and even make a whole community richer. Learn more  with Dr. Russell

August 2, 2017 | Video

Tech inventors switched from making missile systems for the government to making personal computers thanks to tax cuts. Watch more with Dr. Domitrovic.

July 24, 2017 | Post

Why are so many of us unwilling to save enough for retirement or cut back on the Coke and cookies even though we really want wealth and health?

July 21, 2017 | Post

All of the brainpower and raw materials that go into evading liquor laws or helping people pass drug tests could have been used for something more valuable (like just making more beer).

July 12, 2017 | Post

Charging different prices means more people can be part of the deal.

July 10, 2017 | Video

Can economics tell us what kind of foreign policy will work in Syria or around the world?

July 6, 2017 | Video

Prices allow huge numbers of people to coordinate their plans and achieve amazing things together. Learn more with Dr. Russell Russell, Daniel. “Coordination Through Prices.” YouTube. Learn Liberty, 6 July 2017.

June 29, 2017 | Video

How transaction costs can block trade, and intermediation can keep it going — even in a POW camp. Watch more with Dan Russell. Russell, Daniel. “Transaction Costs and Intermediation.” YouTube. Learn Liberty, 29 June 2017.