All Posts Tagged With: "government intervention"
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 [...]
New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America
Not everyone loved President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even in 1936, when he enjoyed his most lopsided electoral victory, almost 17 million voters cast their ballots for Alf Landon. During Roosevelt’s long presidency, he attracted vigorous literary critics, such as H. L. Mencken, John T. Flynn, and Garet Garrett. But the winners write the history, and [...]
19Aug2009 | Robert Higgs | 1 comment | ContinuedDim Bulbs
“Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.”
—Thomas A. Edison
Edison’s words may have been true in the 1800s. Today, however, we have plenty of rules, thanks to the U.S. Congress. Some are so bizarre that you have to question the judgment of those who come up with them. One rule in particular is [...]
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 | ContinuedGovernment Fundamentalism
Many free-market economists like me are quite willing to admit that markets don’t work perfectly and to examine and accept government solutions if their advocates can show how governments can be motivated to actually carry them out. And yet we are called market fundamentalists. On the other hand, many people who call us that are unwilling to change any of their views about the efficacy of government intervention no matter how badly the intervention works. Who are the fundamentalists here?
21May2009 | David R. Henderson | 10 comments | ContinuedBlack Swans, Butterflies, and the Economy
One side blames the market. The other blames government. We get two causal stories going in opposite directions and a lot of animus. But both perhaps are missing something important in this titanic debate about our current financial crisis. It’s time we exposed a complicated truth about the economy of the 21st century.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb [...]
Eating Disorder: How Governments Raise Food Prices
Arthur Foulkes writes for the Terre Haute Tribune-Star in Indiana.
Higher food prices may be frustrating Americans, but they are literally killing people in the least industrialized parts of the world. Hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people—who live close to starvation even in good years—are facing malnutrition and chronic hunger. The absolute poorest are [...]
Book Reviews – June 2008
David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary
by Clint Bolick
Cato Institute • 2007 • 177 pages • $11.95 paperback
Reviewed by George C. Leef
In recent years “judicial activism” has been assailed from both ends of the political spectrum. Conservatives complain about “liberal” activism when courts strike down laws they favor, and “liberals” complain about conservative activism [...]
The Four Mistakes of Nonlibertarians
George Leef is book review editor of The Freeman.
In Libertarianism: For and Against (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), two philosophers debate the merits of libertarianism. Arguing in favor is Professor Tibor Machan, a contributing editor to The Freeman. His opponent is Professor Craig Duncan, who attempts a refutation of libertarianism and seeks to persuade readers that [...]
Inequality Matters
In the controversy raging over whether income inequality in America is growing a lot or a little, some pro-market people say it doesn’t much matter. This attitude is unjustified, not to mention harmful to the cause of individual freedom because it misses the bigger picture.
How could growing economic inequality not matter? I’d understand that position [...]
The Great Contraction, 1929-33
The recession that began in mid-1929 need not have become a disaster. Many downturns had occurred previously in U.S. economic history, and nearly all of them had been fairly shallow and soon followed by recovery and continued growth. In the nineteenth century most people had believed that the government neither knew how nor possessed the [...]
1Apr2007 | Robert Higgs | 0 comments | ContinuedGrowing Up Means Resisting the Statist Impulse
A few months ago, I walked into a restaurant in Naples, Fla., and said “A nonsmoking table for two, please.” The greeter replied, “No problem. All restaurants in Florida are nonsmoking by law. Follow me.”
For a brief moment as we walked to our table, I thought to myself: “Good. No chance of [...]
Toward an Austrian Critique of Governmental Economic Policy
Israel Kirzner is a professor of economics at New York University. This is the fourth (and last) of a series of articles laying out some foundational elements of modern Austrian economics.
In preceding articles we outlined the way in which Austrian economists understand the entrepreneurial competitive market process that is responsible for the law of supply [...]
The Grateful Pedestrian
Yesterday evening I drove to a nearby restaurant. On my way I passed several strolling pedestrians. I did not kill a single one!
Please note that I possessed near absolute ability to do so. A quick and easy flick of my wrist on the steering wheel at almost any time on my drive would have meant [...]
Forgotten Commandment (Exodus 20:15)
Mr. Wolfe is a member of the staff of the Foundation for Economic Education.
Does America’s tax and subsidy system ignore the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal”?
During the 1930’s, certain American intellectuals spearheaded what might be called an ethical uprising in the social realm. They called for government intervention to benefit the less fortunate members [...]
The Literature of Freedom
Mr. Hazlitt, author of “Economics in One Lesson” and other libertarian works is a contributing editor of “Newsweek.”
The free man’s library is a descriptive and critical bibliography of works on the philosophy of individualism—“individualism” in a broad sense. The bibliography includes works which explain the workings and advantages of free trade, free enterprise, and [...]
Flies in the Sugar Bowl
Dr. Poirot is a member of the staff of the Foundation for Economic Education.
If anyone seeks an example of the utter and total failure of government intervention as a substitute for the free-market method of satisfying human wants, let him study the sugar situation in the United States.
In strict confidence, many an American [...]
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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
