All Posts Tagged With: "wealth"
Free 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 | ContinuedAmbrose Bierce on Socialism
Daniel Hager (fris@michcom.net) is a writer and consultant in Lansing, Michigan. Ambrose Bierce packed a pistol when he walked the streets of San Francisco. As a long-time editor and writer there, he made many enemies through the pungency of his pen. So he wisely carried a revolver in case of retaliation. He backed up that [...]
1Dec2004 | Daniel Hager | 3 comments | ContinuedBermuda, Freedom, and Economic Growth
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, says he wants to end Bermuda’s offshore “creed of greed” and crack down on the “corporate Benedict Arnolds” who move offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes. (The statements are taken from the Bermuda Mid Ocean News, January 23, 2004.) Kerry said, “I [...]
1Jun2004 | Robert Stewart | 0 comments | ContinuedRent-Seeking: A Primer
Readers of Ideas on Liberty often come across references to the term “rent-seeking.” Usually from the context it’s plain that it refers to something undesirable, but what exactly is it? The idea of rent is an old one in economics. In mainstream economics it refers to a payment to the owner of a fixed factor [...]
1Nov2003 | Sandy Ikeda | 12 comments | ContinuedOblivious to the Obvious
“Ironically, the birth of a child is registered as a reduction in national income per head, while the birth of a farm animal shows up as an improvement.” -Peter Bauer (1991) Each passing year makes me more and more aware of human beings’ astounding capacity for overlooking the obvious. I have in mind here not [...]
1Nov2003 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 1 comment | ContinuedBook Reviews – June 2003
Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control Over the Lives of Ordinary Americans by Charlotte Twight St. Martin’s Press/Palgrave • 2002 • 512 pages • $26.95 hardcover; $17.95 paperback Reviewed by James Bovard Charlotte Twight has written an excellent book to help Americans understand how the federal government is insidiously seizing control of their lives, year by year, edict [...]
1Jun2003 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedEscaping Modernity
Many writers have described the mishmash of emotions and ideas that motivate the “antiglobalization” protesters who have been so much in the news since the 1999 Seattle riots. To point out that many of these ideas are irreconcilably at odds with each other is now old hat. (What, for example, does it mean to be [...]
1Aug2002 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 2 comments | ContinuedNickel and Damned: Barbara Ehrenreich’s View of America
When Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America came out last year, I knew it would be the perfect foil to another book I used in my classes, The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas Stanley and William Danko (1996). Don’t ever say that academics don’t have a sense of humor. [...]
1Jul2002 | Larry Schweikart | 1 comment | ContinuedAn Open Letter to My Parents
Dear Mom and Dad: I suppose I’m typical: not until my own child came along did I reflect seriously on the sacrifices you made and on the challenges you confronted in raising my siblings and me. There’s so much to thank you for. But here I focus on what is surely your most precious gift [...]
1Jul2002 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 3 comments | 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 | Continued"We Can’t Get Rich Doing Each Other’s Laundry"
Since World War II, manufacturing employment as a fraction of total employment has declined steadily. In the middle of the war, it was over 40 percent of the work force. By 1966 it dipped below 30 percent for the first time. By 1985, it dropped below 20 percent for the first time. In 2000 there [...]
1Mar2002 | Russell Roberts | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism
Robert Fogel argues that “egalitarianism” is a national ethic that has manifested itself in American history in three successive forms. During the eighteenth, and most of the nineteenth, century it took the form of desiring for everyone an “equality of opportunity” for material success. Toward the end of the nineteenth, and throughout most of the [...]
1Jan2002 | Sam Bostaph | 0 comments | ContinuedA Myth Shattered: Mises, Hayek, and the Industrial Revolution
Thomas Woods Jr. holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and is a professor of history at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood, New York. The standard view of the Industrial Revolution among the general public is that it led to the widespread impoverishment of people who had hitherto been enjoying lives of joy and abundance. For [...]
1Nov2001 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 1 comment | ContinuedOn Reading History
Economics is the discipline that I loved first and that I continue to love above all. The economic way of thinking—as the late Paul Heyne called it—is a potent solvent for cutting through the nonsense and irrelevancies that typically loom large in policy discussions. No one lacking a solid grasp of economic principles can understand [...]
1Aug2001 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedCapitalists Should Love the Estate Tax?
Writing in the February 15 issue of online magazine Salon, philosophy professor Sam Fleischacker says that he found it “inspiring” that George Soros, Bill Gates Sr., Warren Buffett, and several other wealthy people had spoken out in favor of retaining the estate tax. Fleischacker argues that it is precisely defenders of capitalism who should “fervently [...]
1Jul2001 | Aeon J. Skoble | 3 comments | ContinuedHow Government Prevents Us from Buying Safety
There is a limit to how much people will voluntarily pay to reduce the risk of accidental injury or death. In other words, the marginal value people place on their lives is finite. We accept some risks to take advantage of opportunities to do things that, at the margin, provide more value than the expected sacrifice in health and life expectancy.
1Dec2000 | Dwight R. Lee | 1 comment | ContinuedMarginalism and the Morality of Pricing Human Lives
When I ask students in my large economics classes if some things are just too important to put a price on, someone always answers, “human life.” This seems like a reasonable answer.
1Oct2000 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | Continued-
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