Perspective
Two Decades Since the Fall
Perspective
Two Decades Since
the Fall
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall effectively ceased to exist. Remember the sequence: Communist Hungary started letting people pass into Austria and to freedom. Captives of the Soviet bloc left in droves. East Germans, too—thousands of them. The Hungarian government tried to stanch the flow, but the dam had been breached. [...]
Are We Really all Healthcare Collectivists Now?
“We have to do something about health care.”
The scariest word in that sentence is not something. It’s we.
The first-person plural form is not merely a convenience, as in “We’re in for a cold winter.” It indicates that decisions about “the healthcare system” should be made collectively, with one decision binding everyone.
That’s collectivism.
So why is virtually [...]
Human Action as a Work of Art
What can one say briefly about Human Action? When it was being written and people would ask what it was to be about, the answer given among Mises’s students was: Everything.
Indeed.
From the setting forth of praxeology as the a priori science of human action, to the description of the market’s operation, to the explanation of [...]
Bad Regulation Drives Out Good
In 1969 economist Harold Demsetz identified a flaw in much public policy analysis, the “Nirvana Fallacy”:
“The view that now pervades much public policy economics implicitly presents the relevant choice as between an ideal norm and an existing ‘imperfect’ institutional arrangement. This nirvana approach differs considerably from a comparative institution approach in which the relevant choice is [...]
Who Watches Our Guardians?
Predictably, the leading inquisitors into the causes of the financial turmoil are themselves among the most culpable: Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. AIG got into trouble because it in effect wrote insurance policies (credit default swaps) against the failure of securities based on mortgages, many of which were waiting to blow up when the housing bubble burst. Who created the housing bubble?
21May2009 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued“I, Pencil” Revisited
Leonard Read’s classic essay, “I, Pencil,” is justly celebrated as the best short introduction to the division of labor and undesigned order ever written. But it holds another, largely overlooked lesson as well: “I, Pencil” is an excellent primer in the Austrian approach to capital theory.
Read’s pencil describes its family tree, beginning with the cedars [...]
Paul Krugman Flunks Capital Theory
Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is said to have bested commentator George Will over what prolonged the Great Depression during a joint appearance on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” back in November. But all Krugman really did was show that he, as a Keynesian, holds an unrealistic Play-Doh model of [...]
1Apr2009 | Sheldon Richman | 4 comments | ContinuedNews Flash: FDR Didn’t Restore Prosperity!
The New Deal did not end the Great Depression. This statement will come as no shock to Freeman readers, but it will to the many people who have never encountered it before. Now people are encountering it—in newspaper columns and news-talk shows.
Why, after years of being taught that Franklin Roosevelt’s economic intervention saved the country [...]
Theory and Crisis
What might be even more distressing than the current buildup of the corporate state in response to the supposed economic crisis is the way some self-styled advocates of the free market are willing to cast aside the economic theory they once claimed to embrace.
If you are a glutton for cable news-talk shows, you know it’s [...]
Bailing Out Statism
The key to understanding the saga of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the newly nationalized twin government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that dominate home financing—is this:
They were created—intentionally—to distort the housing and mortgage markets. That is, government planners were not content to let voluntary exchange and spontaneous market forces configure those industries unmolested. So—holding the taxpayers hostage—they intervened.
Make [...]
Paternalist Nudges
Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein and University of Chicago economics professor Richard Thaler are self-proclaimed “libertarian paternalists” (http://tinyurl.com/6xy6l4). Contradiction in terms? They think not. According to their approach, “[G]overnments try to move people in good directions without imposing penalties, mandates or bans.” The part about “moving people in good directions” is the paternalism. The part [...]
1Nov2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedHubris in the First Degree
“I will commit two billion dollars each year on clean-coal research and development. We will build the demonstration plants, refine the techniques and equipment, and make clean coal a reality.”
That’s what John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said back on June 18 in Springfield, Missouri. My first reaction was this: “That’s mighty generous of Senator [...]
The “Stable Bulwark of Our Liberties”
The U.S. Supreme Court in June struck a blow for the separation of powers and dealt the Bush administration a big setback by ruling that suspects held without charge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to contest their imprisonment under the doctrine of habeas corpus.
Simply put, the Court held that the government may not [...]
Government Schools and the Housing Mess
The Law of Unintended Consequences is a fascinating thing. You can never be entirely sure what the second-, third-, etc.- order effects of any action will be. This is especially so with government policy because centralized decision-making can do so much damage to so many people. That ought to humble the politicians and bureaucrats, but [...]
1Jun2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedAre the Voters Qualified to Pick a President?
The big political buzz is over whether John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama are qualified to be president. The voters are expected to decide, but are they qualified to do that?
How would voters know who is up to this job? They might try to make a judgment on the basis of character. But that [...]
A Matter of Priorities
‘Tis the political season, which means the season to bash immigrants. This goes especially for so-called “illegal aliens,” that is, residents without government papers. (As if that’s a big deal.)
Candidates and others who are set on securing the Mexican border—the Canadian border seems of less concern—and expelling those who had the audacity to come to [...]
Last Taxpayer Standing
You’d think that if the people are the masters and government is the servant, taxpayers could sue when their money was spent in ways that violate their rights. But that’s not how the courts see the matter.
Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, once again, that mere taxpayer status confers no standing to sue the [...]
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Book Reviews
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Montessori, Dewey and Capitalism: Educational Theory for a Free Market In Education
By Jerry Kirkpatrick
