Archive for Thomas E. Woods Jr.

The Myth of Wartime Prosperity

Whenever an earthquake or a tornado causes great damage, some reporter somewhere claims that on net it will boost the local economy since the rebuilding effort will create jobs and increase business for local merchants. Similarly, whenever a war breaks out, the same reporter can be counted on to emphasize the economic stimulus it allegedly [...]

1Dec2004 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 5 comments | Continued

The Fallacies of Distributism

Thomas Woods holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and is assistant professor of history at Suffolk Community College (SUNY) in Brentwood, New York. In certain disaffected pockets of the political left and right, more and more voices can be heard on behalf of an economic and social system known as distributism. According to [...]

1Nov2003 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 2 comments | Continued

Why Wages Used to Be So Low

Thomas Woods holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and is assistant professor of history at Suffolk Community College, a unit of the State University of New York. A widespread misconception about the market economy is that it was responsible for low wage rates from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution through the early [...]

1Jun2003 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 0 comments | Continued

There’s No Such Thing as “Overproduction”

A most stubborn economic fallacy, especially in my own discipline of history, is that in the unhampered market, output can exceed demand. This is the alleged problem of “overproduction.” The result of this calamity, we are told, is that unsold surpluses pile up, leading to mass unemployment, since the natural solution to overproduction is to [...]

1Jan2003 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 0 comments | Continued

Race, Inequality, and the Market

Not long ago I found myself in a debate with colleagues about the economic status of black Americans vis-à-vis whites. Naturally, their presumption was against the free market. The logic, such as it was, ran as follows: (1) we live under a market system (more or less); (2) in a variety of areas blacks have [...]

1Oct2002 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 0 comments | Continued

The Economics of Infantilism

While this year’s Winter Games were still going on, the website of the National Organization for Women was complaining that with all the Olympic coverage, the press had neglected to notice the 400-person rally, dubbed the “March for Our Lives,” held simultaneously in Salt Lake City. Led by organizations from the Poor People’s Economic Human [...]

1Jun2002 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 1 comment | Continued

Nullification: The Jeffersonian Brake on Government

Thinkers in the classical-liberal tradition, to the extent that they support a coercive state at all, speak routinely of the importance of keeping government strictly limited. To that end, the United States has a written Constitution, which enumerates the relatively brief list of tasks entrusted to the federal government and whose Tenth Amendment makes clear [...]

1Mar2002 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 1 comment | Continued

A Myth Shattered: Mises, Hayek, and the Industrial Revolution

Thomas Woods Jr. holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and is a professor of history at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, New York. The standard view of the Industrial Revolution among the general public is that it led to the widespread impoverishment of people who had hitherto been enjoying lives of joy and abundance. For [...]

1Nov2001 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 1 comment | Continued

The Colonial Origins of American Liberty

Thomas Woods, Jr., is a professor of history at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, New York. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the January 2000 Ludwig von Mises Institute conference, “The History of Liberty,” and appeared on Mises.org. It has recently been suggested that we cease to use the term “Founders” to [...]

1Sep2000 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 0 comments | Continued

The Southern Tradition: Implications for Modern Decentralism

Mr. Woods, a founding member of the Southern League, is a doctoral candidate in history at Columbia University. This paper was delivered in June 1996 at the E.F. Schumacher Society Decentralist Conference held at Williams College in Massachusetts. The American tradition of decentralism has attracted adherents on both sides of the ideological spectrum and from [...]

1Dec1996 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 1 comment | Continued

Globalism and Sovereignty: A Short History of the Bricker Amendment

Mr. Woods, an Intercollegiate Studies Institute Richard M. Weaver Fellow, is a doctoral candidate in history at Columbia University. Historically, conservatives and libertarians have always maintained a suspicion of supranational governing bodies. Their central fear has been that foreign bodies may serve to compromise self-government and American liberties in favor of egalitarian and universalist political [...]

1Apr1996 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 1 comment | Continued

Liberty and Immigration

Mr. Woods, a doctoral candidate in American history at Columbia University, was a summer fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. The extraordinarily high rate of immigration, legal and illegal, into the United States is an indication that our country is doing something right. The United States, while far from boasting a [...]

1Dec1995 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 1 comment | Continued

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