All Posts Tagged With: "interventionism"
The Free Market’s Invisibility Problem
Joseph Packer is a Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Communication. Advocates of liberty face an invisibility problem, first identified by nineteenth-century French libertarian Frédéric Bastiat in the appropriately titled essay “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.” Through a simple story, Bastiat exposed the fallacy that later underlay Keynesian economics. [...]
1Apr2008 | Joseph Packer | 2 comments | ContinuedHierarchy or the Market
In an article in last June’s Freeman, I applied some ideas from the socialist-calculation debate to the private corporation and examined the extent to which it is an island of calculational chaos in the market economy. I’d like to expand that line of analysis now and apply some common free-market insights on knowledge and incentives [...]
1Apr2008 | Kevin A. Carson | 3 comments | ContinuedThe Free Market versus the Interventionist State
During the first half of 1926, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises visited the United States on a three-month lecture tour. After his return to his native Austria, he delivered a talk on “Changes in American Economic Policy” at a meeting of the Vienna Industrial Club. He explained: The United States has become great and rich [...]
1Jan2008 | Richard M. Ebeling | 5 comments | ContinuedThe American Spirit of Enterprise
America has been the land of opportunity and free enterprise, an example and a hope for tens of millions of people around the world. In America both the industrious worker and the creative entrepreneur have been hailed as the complementary producers of prosperity and rising standards of living. Class and caste were meant to play [...]
1Oct2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedDownsizing the Federal Government
By Chris Edwards Reviewed by J. H. Huebert
1May2007 | Jacob H. Huebert | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Cost of the Federal Government in a Freer America
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE. In February, President George W. Bush submitted his proposed federal budget for the fiscal year that begins in October. It called for total government spending of over $2.9 trillion. The administration and the Republicans in Congress insisted that this budget reflected fiscal responsibility and the promise of a [...]
1Mar2007 | Richard M. Ebeling | 2 comments | ContinuedThe New Sweden
Waldemar Ingdahl is director of Eudoxa, a liberal think tank in Stockholm, Sweden. The European Social Model is being heavily discussed in Europe. Some still laud it, but its problems are obvious, with low economic growth, an aging population coupled with “pay-as-you-go” pension systems, and widespread persisting unemployment. In Sweden we have already solved this [...]
1Mar2007 | Waldemar Ingdahl | 5 comments | ContinuedReason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America
By Robert Reich Reviewed by George C. Leef
1Mar2007 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedSmart Economics: Commonsense Answers to 50 Questions about Government, Taxes, Business, and Households
By Michael L. Walden Reviewed by George C. Leef
1Jan2007 | George C. Leef | 2 comments | ContinuedA Government Program for All
My economics students often ask why, if the economic theory I present is correct, there is so much intervention in the economy. It reminds me of an observation made by Henry Hazlitt in Economics in One Lesson: It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the [...]
1Dec2006 | Paul Cwik | 2 comments | ContinuedEye on the Ball
Like clockwork, on Aug. 28 the New York Times produced another page-one story purporting to show that living standards for many Americans have fallen, this time because wages in recent years have failed to keep up with inflation. This has been happening despite rising productivity and even taking into account the shift from cash to [...]
1Nov2006 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Misplaced Acceptance of Political Leaders
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE. This is an election year, and as in all past election years we are inundated with promises and proposals from candidates, each hoping to attract our votes. For the most part what they are promising is “leadership.” They tell us all the things they will do for us [...]
1Sep2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Governmental Habit
In 1977 the late economic historian Jonathan R. T. Hughes published a book called The Governmental Habit (updated in 1991 as The Governmental Habit Redux). It showed how pervasive government intervention in the economy has been since colonial times. The title captures an important phenomenon. People are in the habit of looking to government—the only [...]
1Sep2006 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedNot Losing Sight of the Best in the Pursuit of Liberty
The eighteenth-century French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire warned that “the best is the enemy of the good.” He meant that in trying to pursue unattainable perfection, we may miss the opportunity to create something better than what we have. There is much wisdom in these words. But there is danger in its opposite: If we allow [...]
1Aug2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedLudwig von Mises: The Political Economist of Liberty, Part II
Mises’s defense of classical liberalism against the various forms of collectivism was not limited “merely” to the economic benefits of private property.
1Jun2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | Continued“The Tariff is the Mother of Trusts”
Why should we expect business people to favor laissez faire and to abhor government intervention? Few people outside of business do so.
1Jun2006 | Sheldon Richman | 4 comments | ContinuedJohn Maynard Keynes: The Damage Still Done by a Defunct Economist
Seventy years ago, on February 4, 1936, the English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) published what soon became his most famous work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Few books, in so short a time, have gained such wide influence and generated so destructive an impact on public policy. What Keynes succeeded in [...]
1May2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 40 comments | Continued-
The Latest
Government Beneficence and Other Fairy Tales
I admit I’m amused by the unceasing economic and political malarkey that flows from the pundits at... Read More
The Myths of the Interventionists
One of the most pernicious myths in the economic history of the twentieth century is the belief that... Read More
JPMorgan Chase and Casino Banking
JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the nation’s leading banks, revealed in May that a London trader racked... Read More
Individualism, Trade-Unions, and “Self-Governing Combinations”
Who do you imagine said this? “[Trade-unions] seem natural to the passing phase of social evolution,... Read More
Bubbles, Malinvestment, and Higher Education
Many commentators are asking whether the next big bubble to burst will be the debt associated with the... Read More
