Among economics data watchers, a country’s exports enjoy a hallowed status. The ability of producers in country A to sell goods and services to people in other countries is taken as a sign of A’s economic strength, although the underlying metric for economic strength goes unmentioned. In addition, job counters across the spectrum constantly count […]
Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or a diehard cinephile, you will learn a lot about government from watching these ten great movies, all of which are rated as being some of the best of all time by IMDb and the American Film Institute.
If there is a single aspect of the economic way of thinking that I struggle to put into practice, it’s the idea of letting go of my sunk costs.
What does it really mean to “repeal and replace” Obamacare?
Tuesday night’s address to Congress by President Trump was devoid of detail on infrastructure investment. But in justifying his desire to harness $1 trillion of public and private funds for “new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways”, the President used two lines of bad economic reasoning sadly all too prevalent in public debate on this […]
“Oh for the days of Ma Bell!” is not a lament we’re likely to hear. And for good reason. Before the breakup of AT&T, America’s telephone system was a government-sanctioned monopoly characterized by stagnant service offerings, high costs, and a glacial pace of consumer-facing innovation. So it was distressing when a federal appeals court engaged […]
Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) recently introduced the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act. If it were to become law, RAISE would cut legal immigration by 50 percent over the next ten years by reducing green cards for family members of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, slashing refugees, and […]
If human flourishing is our goal, we must return to a society where economic freedom is championed.
Government school systems fail to provide different kinds of instruction as appropriate to different kinds of students in different places and times.
Capitalism—stronger than any border wall or immigration ban—remains a resilient and deeply American system.
The idea is wrongheaded on both counts: they would harm citizens of the US as well as those of Latin America.
Recently, at a Center for Global Development conference, attendees criticized a wide swath of development programs that, these experts say, provide no evidence they are achieving their objectives.
Although Rawls is part of the liberal tradition, he is arguably the pinnacle of the “high” liberal tradition, which is a far cry from the “classical” side I’m more comfortable with.
Isn’t a Universal Basic Income just another name for a negative income tax, such as Tax = -$10,000 + .3*Income? If so, isn’t a Universal Basic Income means-tested by definition?
Abolitionism is one of the complex historical topics that is always over-simplified in textbook accounts of history.
“The market is not a place, a thing, a collective entity. The market is a process, actuated by the interplay of the actions of the various individuals cooperating under the division of labor.” – Ludwig von Mises
Cryptocurrency is an item intended for use as a commonly accepted medium of exchange that exists in the digital world and relies on encryption to make transactions secure.
Like something straight out of a Neal Stephenson novel, Bitcoin has cyberpunk sex appeal. It foreshadows a radical change in the social and economic order and is shrouded with a mystique and aura that can be difficult to penetrate.
I was initially excited to see that progressive Dean Baker has written a piece on “Eight Market-Oriented Proposals That Reduce Income Inequality” for AEI. It begins promisingly by criticizing overly strict occupational licensing for high-skilled workers. But it then studiously avoids the really big wins. Namely: 1. Immigration. High-skilled immigration reduces conventionally measured inequality by […]
Learn how to drop the word “déblocage” into your romantic evening
Zwolinski concludes his series on William Graham Sumner with the question of how we ought to help the poorest among us.
Zwolinski examines William Graham Sumner’s critique of “social justice.”
Not only is the charge of Sumner being a social Darwinist unfair, but it characterizes his views as nearly the opposite of what they actually were.
William Graham Sumner often gets unfairly labeled a social Darwinist. In this first post in a new series, Zwolinski tries to nail down just what “social Darwinism” means.