All Posts Tagged With: "self-interest"
Black 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 [...]
Did Deregulated Derivatives Cause the Financial Crisis?
For a few months in 2008 I naively thought that the disastrous financial “rescue” actions led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would at least be counterbalanced by widespread recognition that our economic turmoil had been government’s handiwork.
How wrong I was. By the time of this writing, the mainstream press had delivered the “consensus” judgment that [...]
Profit: Not Just a Motive
One of the more common complaints of critics of the market is that “the profit motive” works at cross-purposes with people and firms doing “the right thing.” For example, Michael Moore’s film Sicko was motivated by his desire to take the profit motive out of health care because, in his view, the ways people seek [...]
1Mar2008 | Steven Horwitz | 9 comments | ContinuedImmigration Control, Circa AD 175
Last January the Wall Street Journal reported on the aftermath of federal agents’ success in rounding up Hiics on charges of immigration violation. The Georgia company where these“illegals” had been employed sought to obtain replacements by paying higher wages and offering free transportation. It was soon involved in a series of legal challenges that a [...]
1Dec2007 | Harold B. Jones Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedCan We Be Free If Reason Is the Slave of the Passions?
The writings of David Hume (1711–1776) are a treasure trove for those eager to find pithy, polished memorable quotes to bolster their arguments in favor of freedom, justice, and against the arrogance and follies of governments. It is difficult to resist the youthful élan of his major philosophical work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), [...]
1Oct2007 | Frank van Dun | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
Bike Helmets, Children, and Libertarian Philosophy
To the Editor:
In response to Ted Roberts’s article criticizing the admonishing of children to use bicycle helmets (“Take Your Bike Helmet to the Safety Museum,” February), I’d like to offer a couple of unscientific, anecdotal items from my own experience.
One is from a few decades ago, when I was a [...]
OPEC Sells Us Oil Because It Likes Us? It Just Ain’t So!
Jerry Taylor is Director of Natural Resource Studies at the Cato Institute.
Slavish devotion to common but wrong-headed ideas about economics is never more in need of exposure than when the subject is oil and the Persian Gulf. Here wrong-headed ideas about economics can get someone killed.
But there they were on full display last January in [...]
Self Interest, Part I
Asked on camera by John Stossel “Who has done more good for humanity, Michael Milken or Mother Teresa?” philosopher David Kelley unhesitatingly answered, “Michael Milken.”
Kelley is surely correct. But I’ve spoken to many people who are horrified by this answer. Mother Teresa’s name is synonymous with good deeds and humanitarian concern. In contrast, Michael Milken [...]
Public Interest or Private Interest?
That private interest dominates market decisions is widely accepted, if not always applauded. Farmers don’t get up early on cold mornings in Nebraska to plant crops because of concern over world hunger, but because they want more income for themselves and their families. People don’t invest in pharmaceutical firms because they want to help the [...]
1May2002 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 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 | ContinuedEconomic Illiteracy
Paul Cleveland is an associate professor of economics at Birmingham Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama.
Outing the fall semester, the first examination given to my principles-of-economics students included this:
Discuss the following statement: When an economic function is turned over to the government, social cooperation invariably replaces self-interest as the motivation for human action.
The proper answer to [...]
Limited 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 [...]
Serving Others
Mr. Fairless is Chairman of the Executive Advisory Committee, United States Steel Corporation.
Ours would indeed be a sorry world if self-interest did not activate individuals to serve one another.
As far as I know, there are only two basic motivations that cause you and me and other people to serve our neighbors voluntarily and [...]
The Birth Of A Capitalist
Dean Russell is a member of the staff of the Foundation for Economic Education.
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 [...]
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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
