Economics

The vast majority of Amazonian deforestation happens on land directly controlled by Brazilian states or the federal government.

“Saving lives” is inseparable from saving livelihoods.

The inescapable conclusion of the Mises-Hayek argument about socialist calculation is that an efficient socialist society cannot be designed.

Capitalism (and economic analysis) requires reason, not faith, facts, not what feels good. The supply side is the right side, but the Pollyannas must cease their bias and at least try becoming more objective. They must defend the right policies, not merely those imposed…

In contrast to Canada, which has no national restrictions against price gouging, 39 American states now have stringent laws or executive orders against raising prices during emergencies.

We should focus on shielding the elderly and people with comorbidities while allowing the young and healthy to associate with one another in order to build up immunities

The proper name for “government stimulus” is: “capital destruction.” It’s the unreplaced using up of the factors of production.

These insights into the nature of the market process are part of Israel Kirzner’s lasting legacy to our understanding of the workings of the economic order.

Say’s Law and Saysian economics go hand in hand with a political-economic-philosophical appreciation for capitalism – for rationality, the pursuit of self-interest, entrepreneurialism, profit-making, private property rights, the rule of law, and constitutionalism.

Economics is fun and simple. It’s made complicated by some economics professors. Let’s apply some simple tools of economics to reveal outright myths, lies and tricks.

Joseph A. Schumpeter is identified with two related ideas, the notion of the innovative entrepreneur and the imagery of the competitive market as a process of creative destruction.

The fact is, there is far more in the world that successfully manages and “regulates” itself without the controlling hand of the government than many of us pause to reflect on or understand. 

Your building your own deck would be worthwhile only if your cost of doing so is less than the cost of having someone else, such as Jones, build it for you.

The Great Depression was not one, but four consecutive depressions that Professor Hans Sennholz has labeled as four “phases”: the business cycle; the disintegration of the world economy; the New Deal; and the Wagner Act.

Say’s Law of Markets already included the answers to the questions against free markets with which the Keynesians attempted to challenge the efficacy of capitalism a century later.

Amongst Thomas Piketty, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Jerry Yang, and Jeremy Corbyn a wealth tax is all the rage as a means to rectify “wealth inequality”. But what does it really do?

So many CEOs know so little about economics that they don’t know that in a free market producing for the profit of their stockholders in and of itself implies producing for the benefit of everyone.

At any moment in time, the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. Manners are missing; ethics are being eliminated; culture is corrupted; social attitudes are supercilious; virtues are vanishing; literature is mostly licentious; industry and commerce are...

It is capitalism and the competitive market process that generates solutions to the knowledge problems of the society, including the “informational asymmetry” that naturally follows from any developed social system of division of labor.

As the economic degree of capitalism rises, not only do profit margins and the rate of profit fall, but wage payments come into being and then rise both absolutely and relative to profits.

In economics Hayek is a radical; but in philosophy, unlike Ayn Rand, Hayek is a conservative.

Any social system must coordinate production and cooperation, and must also implement a system of distribution that participants perceive as sustainable, which often means morally fair. As Nobelist Elinor Ostrom demonstrated, there are many and widely varied social...

Economic growth has been faster when the federal government has been smaller (relative to GDP) – and vice versa.

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

Ayn Rand publicly recommended the works of Mises but not of Hayek. Today, when Hayek is much better known than Mises, it’s worth seeing why. I came to the full realization of what’s wrong with Hayek’s approach while re-reading Atlas Shrugged . No,...

Those three elements are (a) division of labor; (b) impersonal exchange based on prices; and (3) economies of scale based on knowledge.

Some creative rethinking can put us on the road to a better tomorrow.