All Posts Tagged With: "social engineering"
Lost in Transcription
Following rules, such as the rules of language, of the market, or of just conduct, is more about “knowing how” than “knowing that.” This is a lesson taught by many important thinkers, among them, Gilbert Ryle (who used these terms in the title of chapter 2 of The Concept of Mind), F. A. Hayek, and [...]
1Dec2008 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedBailing Out Statism
The key to understanding the saga of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the newly nationalized twin government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that dominate home financing—is this:
They were created—intentionally—to distort the housing and mortgage markets. That is, government planners were not content to let voluntary exchange and spontaneous market forces configure those industries unmolested. So—holding the taxpayers hostage—they intervened.
Make [...]
China’s One-Child Disaster
Contributing editor Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, California.
On February 28 a Reuters news story quoted Zhao Baige, the Chinese vice minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC), as indicating that the People’s Republic of China might change its “one-child [...]
A Department of Homeland Happiness Security? Only if We Want to Be Unhappy!
Richard Ebeling (rebeling@fee.org) is the president of FEE.
It is more than 230 years since Adam Smith observed that each individual is a better judge of how best to apply his productive efforts than any statesman who would direct the economic activities of the citizenry. Furthermore, Smith said, any such power “would nowhere be so dangerous [...]
Freedom and the Role of Government
Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE.
What is the role of government? This has been and remains the most fundamental question in all political discussions and debates. Its answer will determine the nature of the social order and how people will be expected and allowed to interact with one another—on the basis of either force [...]
Lawyers Run Amok
Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author and editor of several books.
As Washington, D.C., prepared for the descent of thousands of anti-globalization protesters last fall, George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf proposed deploying the ultimate weapon: trial lawyers.
Hit the demonstrators with a class-action lawsuit! [...]
Blessed Debt
Sheldon Richman is editor of Ideas on Liberty.
Should we cut taxes or pay off the national debt?
What’s missing from this picture?
Aside from the fact that paying off the debt need not be a priority (there is no connection between the debt and economic growth), the question is a classic case of the Fallacy of the [...]
The Humanitarian with the Guillotine
Reprinted from The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson, published in 1943.
Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends. [...]
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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
