Category:Basic Economics

July 5, 2022 | Post

According to a survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation, the cost of an average 4th of July feast is up by 17 percent from 2021. Why is this?

May 26, 2022 | Post

Unfortunately, a free market is not something that appears overnight, so what do we say to those who do not have equal opportunities as things stand?

April 26, 2022 | Post

What lessons can we learn about the importance of property rights from examples such as rental cars and Brazil’s favelas?

April 12, 2022 | Post

In order to be able to address the root problems of inflation, we need to dispel some common myths. Here are our top five picks:

April 7, 2022 | Post

Reddit created an open, collaborative canvas where anyone can paint, but the only way to render a cohesive image is collaboration through spontaneous order.

March 25, 2022 | Post

John Locke and David Hume are two thinkers who provided a robust defense of property rights, and their arguments are markedly different.

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 […]

September 4, 2021 | Post

The G7’s recent plan for a global minimum tax rate of 15% is a terrible idea that will hurt consumers and restrict competition.

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