All Posts Tagged With: "self-interest"
The Pursuit of Justice: The Law and Economics of Legal Institutions
Public Choice analysis is the application of economic reasoning—principally the idea that human action is primarily self-interested—to questions drawn from politics and government. It was famously described by James Buchanan as “politics without romance.” To date most Public Choice research has focused on the behavior of political actors. Less attention has been paid to the behavior [...]
30Nov2011 | Michael DeBow | 18 comments | ContinuedDangerous Political Naifs
Being well past the age of 50 and having spent nearly all my adult life as an academic economist, I seize the privilege of doing what so many other economists of my age and rank do—namely, offer unsolicited speculations about what is right and what is wrong with modern economics. First, something that is right. [...]
26Oct2011 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 10 comments | ContinuedIs a Nation Something That Can Be Built?
In the wake of both the collapse of the Soviet empire and the more recent U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have seen a lively debate on nation-building. Many people who are ordinarily skeptical about the power of the U.S. government as a force for good, either at home or around the world, have [...]
25May2011 | Steven Horwitz | 10 comments | ContinuedThe Progressive Income Tax and the Joy of Spending Other People’s Money
On August 31, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt traveled to Kansas to make a stirring speech in support of a federal income tax. “The really big fortune,” Roosevelt said, “the swollen fortune by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men [...]
21Apr2011 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Hesitant Hand: Taming Self-Interest in the History of Economic Ideas
“The focus of this book,” according to its author, “is the interplay of self-interest, market, and the state in economic analysis from the mid-nineteenth century up through the latter stages of the twentieth.” Much of this well-written study, however, is devoted to describing the intellectual origins of the approach to political economy known today as [...]
24Feb2011 | Sandy Ikeda | 0 comments | ContinuedGordon Gekko on Greed
When profits and losses redound to those responsible for making the decisions that produce them, market participants tend to grow more responsible and make better decisions.
28Sep2010 | Sandy Ikeda | 12 comments | ContinuedMore Border-Picture Economics
I suggested in the May issue that an aerial photograph of the border between barren Haiti and the heavily forested Dominican Republic was a predictor of the recent Haitian earthquake devastation. Not the earthquake, mind you, but the devastation that followed. The property-rights vacuum that encouraged Haitians to cut trees down without replanting also motivated [...]
29Jun2010 | T. Norman Van Cott | 0 comments | ContinuedUnintended Consequences
In two earlier Freeman essays, I explored the idea that “ought implies can” and the role of profits in providing knowledge about how best to serve others. Both insights rely on the foundational idea that intentions and results are not the same thing. Thinking we ought to do something does not mean it will have [...]
24Feb2010 | Steven Horwitz | 31 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 [...]
2Mar2009 | Max Borders | 62 comments | ContinuedDid 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 [...]
2Mar2009 | Robert P. Murphy | 21 comments | ContinuedProfit: 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 | 34 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 | 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 | ContinuedThe Radicals’ Rancorous Rage
In a revolution for liberty, they sought power. In an age of individuality and self-reliance, they demanded obedience. In a century of personal excellence, they relished “leveling.” They called themselves Radical Patriots, as though the troops who starved and froze at Valley Forge weren’t patriotic enough. But these eighteenth-century politicians had about them little that [...]
1Jun2005 | Becky Akers | 2 comments | ContinuedHurrah for Voluntary Art!
My heart sank when I first heard about the New York City art project known as “The Gates.” One thousand workers were to put up 7,500 gates along the paths in Central Park and drape saffron-colored fabric from each one. I wasn’t reacting to the art. In fact, I hadn’t even decided if the project [...]
1May2005 | James L. Payne | 1 comment | ContinuedFree Trade and the Climb Out of Poverty
Over the thousands of years of human history, poverty and early death have been the norm, with comfort and longevity the exceptions. The improvements in the human condition, at least on average, seen over the course of the twentieth century dwarf the improvements of the previous centuries combined. By virtually any measure one can imagine, [...]
1Mar2005 | Steven Horwitz | 0 comments | Continued-
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