All Posts Tagged With: "income redistribution"
Book Reviews – December 2006
- The Ethics of the Market
by John Meadowcroft Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
- Peddling Panaceas: Popular Economists _in the New Deal Era
by Gary Dean Best Reviewed by Burton Folsom, Jr
- Philosophers of Capitalism: _Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond
by Edward W. Younkins Reviewed by Aeon J. Skoble
- Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in _Black America
by John McWhorter Reviewed by George C. Leef
Keynesian Economics and Constitutional Government
Last month 650 economists called for an increase in the federal minimum wage, saying it was the responsibility of the government to “improve the well-being of low-wage workers” by mandating the terms under which people may be employed. Among these economists were five recipients of the Nobel Prize in economics. One of them was Lawrence [...]
1Nov2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedWhat Is Going on in France?
Pierre Garello is a professor of economics at Aix-Marseille University, France. It is sometime painful for a liberal—I will be using that word in its old, continental, sense—to live in France, especially in southern France: so much light, so many beauties given by nature, and at the same time so much wealth wasted! Riots; strikes; blockage [...]
1Oct2006 | Pierre Garello | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – June 2006
The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly — reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein — reviewed by Gary M. Galles
Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the Worlds Water Crisis by Fredrik Segerfeldt — reviewed by George C. Leef
Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity by James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight R. Lee — reviewed by Tom Lehman
1Jun2006 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedHayek and Freedom
A few years ago I had the opportunity to look through a transcription of a set of note cards that F. A. Hayek kept through the latter years of his life. It was fascinating to see how he wrote for himself and to get glimpses of ideas that would later be more fully fleshed out. [...]
1May2006 | Steven Horwitz | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Immorality of Redistribution
It has been proposed that government assistance programs like prescription drugs should be provided only to those who earn less than a certain income. The fate of such a policy can be predicted from what has happened to Medicaid. Intended to provide medical care for the poor, Medicaid has become “inheritance protection for the children [...]
1Mar2006 | Harold B. Jones Jr. | 1 comment | ContinuedNo Buts about Freedom
Back in the early 1970s, the late Leonard E. Read, founder and first president of FEE, wrote a short piece in The Freeman called Sinking in a Sea of Buts. He said it was not uncommon or someone to say to him,I agree with you in principle, but . . . The but invariably referred to some exception from the principle of freedom in the form of a desired government intervention. The problem, Read pointed out, is that when everyones exceptions to freedom are added up, well, freedom ends up being sunk by all the buts.
Why the Social Security Tax Cap Shouldn’t Be Raised
In recent months Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, has suggested making all earned income up to $200,000 subject to the Social Security (FICA) tax. The current maximum on which Americans pay the tax is $90,000. This maximum rises every year based on a government estimate of real wage growth in the recent [...]
1Jun2005 | David R. Henderson | 1 comment | ContinuedAmbrose Bierce on Socialism
Daniel Hager (fris@michcom.net) is a writer and consultant in Lansing, Michigan. Ambrose Bierce packed a pistol when he walked the streets of San Francisco. As a long-time editor and writer there, he made many enemies through the pungency of his pen. So he wisely carried a revolver in case of retaliation. He backed up that [...]
1Dec2004 | Daniel Hager | 3 comments | ContinuedThe More Things Change . . .
Economic fallacies die hard, which is why reading Henry Hazlitt today is as worthwhile as it ever was. There is certainly a better understanding of the virtues and benefits of markets than there has been in many years—and Hazlitt’s work is surely part of the reason. But freedom will not be achieved by one man, [...]
1Nov2004 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedInflation in One Page
1. Inflation is an increase in the quantity of money and credit. Its chief consequence is soaring prices. Therefore inflation — if we misuse the term to mean the rising prices themselves — is caused solely by printing more money. For this the government’s monetary policies are entirely responsible. 2. The most frequent reason for [...]
1Nov2004 | Henry Hazlitt | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Most Insidious Tax
Dale Haywood is a professor of business at Northwood University and an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, both in Midland, Michigan. People don’t generally spend and invest other people’s money as carefully as they do their own. This single, simple fact goes a long way toward explaining why capitalism works and [...]
1Jul2004 | Dale M. Haywood | 0 comments | ContinuedFree Markets, the Rule of Law, and Classical Liberalism
The history of liberty and prosperity is inseparable from the practice of free enterprise and respect for the rule of law. Both are products of the spirit of classical liberalism. But a correct understanding of free enterprise, the rule of law, and liberalism (rightly understood) is greatly lacking in the world today. Historically, liberalism is [...]
1May2004 | Richard M. Ebeling | 1 comment | ContinuedTax Breaks Aren’t Subsidies
When is a subsidy not a subsidy? When it’s a reduction in taxes. There’s a baffling amount of confusion over what should be a simple matter. Tax reductions, credits, deductions, and exemptions are frequently mistaken for subsidies. This shouldn’t be. Morally they are worlds apart. A subsidy is a cash grant from the government. If [...]
1Apr2004 | Sheldon Richman | 9 comments | ContinuedLet Us Not Speak Falsely Now
One of the most difficult issues facing those arguing for a free society is the bias built into the way we speak. When the very words people use create a prejudice in favor of government intervention, supporters of freedom must first alert their audience to this pernicious influence, and only then can the argument about [...]
1Mar2004 | Gene Callahan | 1 comment | ContinuedSocial Security: Mythmaking and Policymaking
Beginning in 1935, when Social Security was enacted, the program’s administrators made a huge effort to shape the public’s understanding of and beliefs about it. In speeches, articles, pamphlets, and other mass-circulation literature, they described Social Security as “insurance” under which workers pay “contributions” or “premiums” to receive “guaranteed” benefits that, being “paid for,” are theirs “as a matter of earned right,” without any means test.1
1Dec2003 | John Attarian | 8 comments | ContinuedThe Birth of a Capitalist
This article is reprinted from the September 1955 issue of Ideas on Liberty. When the new superintendent came to the orphanage where I was reared, he found that we kids were not allowed to earn or have any spending money. So one of the first things he did was to tell us that if we [...]
1Dec2003 | Dean Russell | 1 comment | Continued-
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