All Posts Tagged With: "scarcity"
The Trouble with Keynes
Keynesian theory implies an inherent instability in market economies. Thus the theory cannot possibly explain how a healthy market economy functions—how the market process allows one kind of activity to be traded off against the other.
1Apr2009 | Roger W. Garrison | 2 comments | ContinuedUnpleasant Economists
Economists are not the most pleasant people to have around when others are delightfully praising the benefits of this or that public policy. We acknowledge the existence of scarcity, the fact that to enjoy more of one thing requires having less of another, which in turn forces us into bringing up the unpleasant topic of [...]
1Sep2008 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedEconomists and Scarcity
In a world where concerns about the environment and resources dominate political discussion and, for people like Al Gore, are a “generational mission [that gives] moral purpose” to our lives, thinking clearly about these issues is crucial. Economics can contribute to this discussion by providing its perspective on words such as “scarcity” and “resources,” which [...]
1Jun2008 | Steven Horwitz | 0 comments | ContinuedMisunderstanding Efficiency
Gary Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University.
Efficiency—getting the most value from a given amount of resources—is important in a world of scarcity. The more efficient people are, the better off they can make themselves. That’s why economists are always talking about efficiency. Unfortunately, what economists have to say on the subject is [...]
Need and Public Policy: Handle with Care
In public-policy debates the word most commonly invoked as the ace in the hole is “need.” However, “need” needs careful handling.
“Need” has the political advantage, but the logical disadvantage, of lacking a clear meaning. That allows it to be systematically abused to distort understanding and to reach desired conclusions that justify picking people’s pockets to [...]
Economics for the Citizen: Part V
We’re all grossly ignorant about most things that we use and encounter in our daily lives, but each of us is knowledgeable about tiny, relatively inconsequential things. For example, a baker might be the best baker in town, but he’s grossly ignorant about virtually all the inputs that allow him to be the best baker. [...]
1Aug2006 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedFree Trade’s Never-Ending Battle
Arthur Foulkes is a freelance writer living in Indiana.
Bastiat, did you live in vain?
I can think of few people who did more for the cause of free trade in his lifetime than Frédéric Bastiat. A nineteenth-century French lawmaker, pamphleteer, economist, and philosopher, Bastiat is well known to free-trade advocates even today. His classic satirical essay [...]
Twisting Economics Against Immigrants
P. Gardner Goldsmith is an independent journalist and screenwriter in New Hampshire.
On January 7 President Bush announced what appeared to be a sweeping plan to grant de-facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens working in the United States. In fact, it was little more than a long-term worker-visa program that barely increased the ability of [...]
Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom
The revival of the modern Austrian school of economics may be said to have begun 30 years ago, during the week of June 15–22, 1974, when the Institute for Humane Studies sponsored a conference on Austrian economics for about 40 participants in the small town of South Royalton, Vermont.
In 1974 the Austrian school had been [...]
Econ 101: An Austrian Economist’s Dream
Arthur Foulkes is a freelance writer in Indiana.
On the first day in an economics class the instructor tells us that “resources are scarce,” but human “wants are unlimited”—hence the eternal “economic problem.” How do we know resources are scarce? We can observe this fact with our senses; we can see that nothing is available in [...]
Nationalized Health Care Will Cut Costs? It Just Ain’t So!
A group called Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) is promoting a government insurance plan to cover all Americans. In an August 13, 2003, Los Angeles Times report, the group claimed that their “single payer” plan would eliminate $200 billion a year in “administrative, marketing and other private-industry expenses.” This would save enough “to provide [...]
1Jan2004 | Gene Callahan and Robert Murphy | 15 comments | ContinuedThe Problem of Environmental Protection
A common belief is that economists don’t care much about the environment because they are preoccupied with money, markets, and material wealth. And when economists do consider ways to protect the environment, they emphasize benefits and costs, trying to express all values in terms of cash.
1Apr2001 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Market for Space in the Market
Gary Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.
Slotting fees—payments by producers for space on retailers’ shelves—are under attack. According to Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond of Missouri, chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business, which held hearings last fall, the practice “threatens competition, jobs and likely drives up the cost [...]
Spreading the Work to Create More Jobs
Last month I emphasized that job creation is not a sensible objective for economic policy. The purpose of economic activity is not to do work for its own sake. What’s the point of creating jobs to produce goods or services that consumers don’t want as much as other things that could have been produced? Yet there is a widespread view that having government create more jobs is the best way to promote economic progress. Wrong.
1Feb2000 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | ContinuedHurricanes Are Creative Destruction? It Just Ain’t So!
My employer, Loyola College, is a Jesuit institution and, as such, encourages its students to participate in myriad community-service programs. In teaching introductory economics, I propose on the first day of class a marriage of economic education and community service. I offer to give students aluminum baseball bats with which they will walk through the [...]
1Feb2000 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo | 0 comments | ContinuedCreating Jobs vs. Creating Wealth
Government policies are commonly evaluated in terms of how many jobs they create. Restricting imports is seen as a way to protect and create domestic jobs. Tax preferences and loopholes are commonly justified as ways of increasing employment in the favored activity. Presidents point with pride to the number of jobs created in the economy [...]
1Jan2000 | Dwight R. Lee | 5 comments | ContinuedLimited Government, Individual Liberty and the Rule of Law: Selected Works of Arthur Asher Shenfield edited by Norman Barry
Edward Elgar Publishing • 1998 • 378 pages • $100.00
How well I remember Arthur Shenfield (1909-1990), an unforgettable man learned in law and economics and a keen student of a free society. We used to debate privately about who was the greater economist, Mises or Hayek. I chose Mises, he Hayek. I had the good [...]
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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
