All Posts Tagged With: "competition"
Competition
Give Me a Break!
Competition
by John Stossel
John Stossel is the hosts of Stossel on Fox Business and the author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know is Wrong. Copyright 2009 by JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.
“Choice, competition, reducing costs—those
are the things that I want to see accomplished [...]
How “Intellectual Property” Impedes Competition
Any consideration of “intellectual property rights” must start from the understanding that such “rights” undermine genuine property rights and hence are illegitimate in terms of libertarian principle. Real, tangible property rights result from natural scarcity and follow as a matter of course from the attempt to maintain occupancy of physical property that cannot be possessed [...]
23Sep2009 | Kevin Carson | 7 comments | ContinuedCompetition Would Save Medicine, Too
Competition so regularly brings us better stuff—cars, phones, shoes, medicine—that we’ve come to expect it. We complain on the rare occasion the supermarket doesn’t carry a particular ice-cream flavor. We just assume the store will have 30,000 items, that it will be open 24/7, and that the food will be fresh and cheap.
I take it [...]
From Good Samaritan to Robin Hood
The clamor from interventionists against inequality morphs into a clamor for a larger and larger state. This path leads to the loss of liberty and a distortion of both democracy and justice. It distorts democracy because, by attempting to solve inequality, it removes limits to power and expands the field of state action. It distorts justice because the only way to solve inequality politically is for the state to have the power to treat individuals unequally. Thus the struggle to eliminate inequality ends up destroying the most important form of equality for an open society: equality before the law.
10Jun2009 | Carlos Rodríguez Braun | 1 comment | 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 [...]
Cable-Franchise Reform: Deregulation or Just New Regulators?
Adam Summers is a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation.
There is much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing among politicians who decry businesses for maintaining monopolies that harm consumers. Yet in a free market such businesses will find any monopoly position fleeting. If they charge too much or fail to provide suitable quality in their products and services, [...]
Europe: Still a Laggard Economy
There have been increasing signs of optimism from European economy watchers. After some years in the doldrums, with slow growth and rising unemployment, things appear to be looking up: labor markets are more efficient; growth was good for 2006; and the euro is doing well against the dollar after years of weakness following its inception [...]
1Mar2007 | Norman Barry | 0 comments | ContinuedCapitalism and Democracy
I recently heard a prominent American politician tell how a “chill” went up his spine when he heard someone question the importance of democracy. How could anyone doubt the value of democracy? he wondered. Fortunately, he said, he soon realized that by “democracy” his (European) interlocutor really meant “capitalism.” Whew, he thought, that’s all right, [...]
1Nov2006 | Arthur E. Foulkes | 0 comments | ContinuedOn Misplaced Concreteness in Social Theory
Joseph Stromberg (jrstromberg@charter.net) is a historian and freelance writer.
The following piece will not be as abstruse as its title suggests. Rather, it results from the simple observation that, time and time again, some harmful outcome or process commonly attributed to the everyday workings of the market economy actually does exist, but it exists in the [...]
Telecom Regulations Don’t Create Competitive Markets
Lawrence Reed is president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market research and educational organization in Midland, Michigan. The author would like to thank Diane Katz, director of science, environment, and technology policy at the Mackinac Center, for her assistance in the preparation of this column.
Few of us would understand the jargon employed [...]
Free-Trade Theory No Longer Applies? It Just Aint So!
Gene Callahan is the author of Economics for Real People.
In an op-ed in the January 6 New York Times, “liberal” U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and conservative economist Paul Craig Roberts tapped into the anxiety felt by many Americans about their changing roles in the global economy. The authors argued that new economic conditions undermine the [...]
The Absurdity of "Saving Jobs"
Timothy Terrell teaches economics at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
In any period of economic distress there is a renewed search for political solutions to unemployment. It seems obvious that jobs must be saved, and the government must be the key to preserving those jobs. So we get another round of government intervention: economic stimulus [...]
Project Labor Agreements: Economic Illiteracy 101
Steven Greenhut is a senior editorial writer and columnist for the Orange County Register in Santa Ana, California.
Perhaps it’s the result of a dumbing-down of the American citizenry, but these days economic debates are waged with the most illogical premises.
For instance, in recent weeks news stories have discussed plans by some California cities to use [...]
Henry Ford, Upton Sinclair, and Limits on Consumer Choice
Richard Coffman and Ashley Lyman are associate professors of economics at the University of Idaho.
Early in the twentieth century two prominent Americans, one a capitalist, the other a socialist, enunciated surprisingly similar views on the relationship between product differentiation and consumer welfare. The capitalist, Henry Ford, had revolutionized the young automobile industry, using mass-production techniques [...]
Education, Creativity, and Prosperity: East versus West
Christopher Lingle is a visiting professor of economics at ESEADE, Universidad Francisco Marroquín.
It is widely believed that a commitment to education is a key element in the “miracle” economic growth experienced in much of East Asia over the past several decades. For example, the introduction of universal primary schooling in Japan is presumed to have [...]
Monopoly Politics by James C. Miller III
Hoover Institution Press • 1999 • 157 pages • $17.95
The Founding Fathers were well aware that it takes more than ideas, as important as they are, to permit freedom to flourish. It takes institutions—private property, foremost, and political institutions that will protect rather than plunder it. Thus the political system they established was designed with [...]
Stopping Government Sprawl
Timothy Terrell is an assistant professor of economics at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C.
In a scene that is repeated countless times each year in cities all over the world, a local government is preventing a landowner from building a legitimate business on his property. Tom Winkopp, owner of a 50-acre site in Clemson, South Carolina, [...]
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The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let it Happen
By Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous
