All Posts Tagged With: "self-interest"
The 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 | 1 comment | ContinuedOPEC Sells Us Oil Because It Likes Us?
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 [...]
1May2003 | Jerry Taylor | 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 [...]
1May2003 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedUtopia Versus Eutopia
Utopianism has a long-running history that includes turning the 1900s into the bloodiest century in human experience. Typically utopian schemes are founded on the premise that individual self-interest must be subjugated for the purported greater public good. As such, utopianism is fit for only a utopia: the term derives from the Greek words ou (“not”) [...]
1Mar2003 | Daniel Hager | 1 comment | ContinuedSelf-Interest, Part 2
When he tried to do anything for the good of everybody, for humanity, for Russia, for the whole village, he had noticed that the thoughts of it were agreeable, but the activity itself was always unsatisfactory; there was no full assurance that the work was really necessary. . . . But now since his marriage, [...]
1Mar2003 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 1 comment | ContinuedHijacking a Principle
This publication would not normally take notice of a Republican politician’s embarrassing moment. But former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s apparent retroactive endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential campaign is relevant to Ideas on Liberty. It is relevant for this reason: the cause of liberty has been gravely harmed by the association of certain [...]
1Mar2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedSelf 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 [...]
1Feb2003 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 1 comment | ContinuedSensible Assumptions
I’m proud of the contribution that the best economists have made to our understanding of society and to the preservation of freedom. What would our world be like today if F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Adam Smith had not written and lectured as they did? These four great men, and scores [...]
1Dec2002 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedA Beautiful Movie, Lousy Economics
A Beautiful Mind, winner of this year’s Academy Award for Best Motion Picture, dramatizes the life of John Forbes Nash, who in 1994 was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. It was based in part on Sylvia Nasar’s 1998 biography of the same name. As the first major Hollywood movie that centers on [...]
1Aug2002 | Sandy Ikeda | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Bias Favoring Governments over Markets
The thrust of my columns could be summarized as follows: We would be better off increasing our reliance on the voluntary cooperation of the marketplace and reducing our reliance on government commands. This is not an idle assertion reflecting blind ideology or religious zeal, as some would claim. It is based on an impressive foundation [...]
1Jun2002 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | ContinuedEnron Lessons
The Enron soap opera continues to unfold. and as it unfolds, lessons are being learned. Some people are learning lessons about the energy business. Some are learning lessons about the securities business. Some are learning lessons about the accounting business. But some are not content to learn such narrow lessons. They want to look at [...]
1Jun2002 | Russell Roberts | 1 comment | ContinuedPublic 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 | ContinuedOpen Society: Reforming Global Capitalism by George Soros
Public Affairs · 2000 · 369 pages · $26.00 Reviewed by Pierre Lemieux In his latest book, Open Society, retired billionaire speculator George Soros continues to argue against capitalism and its justification in economic theory. The book doesn’t put a dent in capitalism, but shows that billionaire financiers don’t necessarily understand the first thing about [...]
1Sep2001 | Pierre Lemieux | 0 comments | ContinuedFrederic Bastiat: The Primacy of Property
James Dorn is vice president for academic affairs at the Cato Institute and a professor of economics at Towson University in Maryland. This is adapted from a longer article that will appear in the September 2001 Journal des Économistes. Reprinted by permission. Frédéric Bastiat, although best known as an economic journalist, was also a pioneer [...]
1Jun2001 | James A. Dorn | 2 comments | ContinuedIt All Started with Adam
Adam Smith, that is. Having just completed writing a history of economics,[1] I have concluded that, despite the protestations of Murray Rothbard and other detractors, the eighteenth-century moral philosopher and celebrated author of The Wealth of Nations deserves to be named the founding father of modern economics.
1May2001 | Mark Skousen | 2 comments | Continued-
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