The “Broken Window” parable by Frédéric Bastiat, from his 1850 essay “That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen,” reveals the fallacy of believing destruction boosts the economy.
Disasters, such as the horrific earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria in February 2023, bring up a recurring myth — one that demands the wisdom of Frederic Bastiat.
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 […]
Budapest has done the sensible thing and withdrawn from the competition to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Finally a refutation of the standard point about economists – that the more united their view on a subject the less attention anyone else pays to them. For the truth about the Olympics is that they are a […]
Keynesian prognostication aside, natural disasters are always bad for economic growth.
The first time I ever voted, I voted badly: I voted for a plan to use government money to build a soccer stadium and hockey arena in Columbus, Ohio, where I grew up. A few months later, I moved to Tuscaloosa to start college. Along the way, I stopped in Birmingham for a few days […]
🌍 Meet attendees from 60+ countries
💡 Explore 20+ sessions with top speakers
📍 Washington, D.C. | Feb 7-8