I am leaving tomorrow to teach in a week-long economics program for college students in the Republic of Georgia. Georgia was one of the Soviet republics until the Soviet Union dissolved 21 years ago, and the country has made remarkable strides in the two decades since. After a slow start, Georgia instituted major economic...
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In the aftermath of 9/11, we found ourselves almost bereft of friends and allies, as so many we had thought were fellow-travelers—sharing our dedication to core principles of the sanctity of every individual’s right to life and liberty; the danger of the welfare/warfare state; and the primacy of securing and protecting economic and civil...
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While many were surprised that the Supreme Court recently moved from ruling on the actual arguments presented for the Constitutionality of the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a/k/a “Obamacare”) into creating a justification not presented—that the penalty is in fact a tax—the potential broader unintended negative consequences of the...
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Recently my fellow blogger Robert Higgs put up a post on The Beacon with this title, and I am following up with a post of the same name, after my attendance at the annual meeting of the Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE) last week. The AHE is an organization of academic economists from throughout...
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My friend and colleague Robert Higgs has written on the increasing adoption by Americans of the Italian Fascists under Mussolini’s slogan, “Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato:” “Everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” And I have also previously posted on President...
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Economics provides a powerful framework for understanding what goes on in the marketplace, the voting booth, the family, the community, and every other sphere of social activity. Its greatest teachers—from before Adam Smith on down to the present—have always impressed upon the public their discipline’s explanatory powers and importance for human well-being. In his...
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“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” — H. L. Mencken Mass democracy and individual liberty do not mix, despite the propaganda. Surely, if a majority can vote against the rights of the minority, the libertarian case against democracy becomes clear enough. This...
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Born May 8, 1899, F. A. Hayek made landmark contributions to more subjects than most social scientists are even conversant in: economic theory, social-science methodology, political and legal theory, intellectual history—he had something valuable to say about all of these and more. Because so many great pieces about Hayek’s life and work have been...
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The blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng’s hopefully being able to take refuge (with his family) as a visiting scholar at NYU would indeed be a happy outcome of his ordeal. His documentation of forced late-term abortions and sterilizations has led to more than four years in prison; followed by his, his wife’s, and children’s...
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