Free the world, one mind at a time.
Of all imaginary crises to worry about, the spectre of automation is among the most fashionable and enduring, since the times of Ned Ludd. "About 35 percent of China's labor force is in agriculture (compared to 2.5 percent in the U.S.). There are 425 million agricultural workers (200 million farming households) in China. A little… Continue reading Drudge or Producer?
Resource-Based Economies(RBE) are a fantasy at best, a crime against humanity at worst. Read up on the Economic Calculation Problem, or consider the short version: somebody will allocate capital; somebody will decide what to produce, and somebody will direct your life. You'll be just another "resource" to be managed by Apparatchiks and Nomenklatura, who are… Continue reading RBE is worst form of cronyism
A certain legislator wished to make his state great via technology. My reply: Technology is hardly the forte of the legislature. There are fundamental differences between a body of random people whose sole qualification is the ability to get voted into office, and entrepreneurs, who risk their own skin in the game, rather than risking… Continue reading Legislators, Know Thy Limits
( Another episode from my Great Unfinished Novel. ) I'd extended my visit with friends at La Casa de la Paz as long as I could. After a week, it was time to return to the States, there to request a sabbatical and arrange for the transport or disposition of my books and other worldly… Continue reading Fully Automated Luxury Capitalism
This will raise the ire of some libertarians, but I can see no merit in arguments that a copy of the product of one's mental effort is "property." Suppose I make a clay pot. Assuming that the clay was mine, and the tools were mine or were legitimately in my hands, and I had no… Continue reading Against Intellectual Property
Robert Higgs - one of our most underrated economists - wrote In economic theory, a high level of aggregation conceals a multitude of sins. The more removed a concept is from genuine, individual, economic choice, the more misleading it is likely to be. The highest-level aggregates, such as GDP, are almost impossible to invest with… Continue reading Lies, Damned Lies, and Aggregates
What's worse than fake news? The news that you don't see. Remember the "memory hole" in the novel 1984? We suffer from a kind of "news blackout" which heavily influences what we think we know. Many of us also, because of our own choices, see a very limited slice of the news which is available.… Continue reading Worse Than Fake News
The words and phrases we use shape our thought. Bad language can lead to bad policy decisions. Daniel B. Klein and Donald J. Boudreaux take aim at a deeply misleading phrase: "trade deficits." Deficits sound bad. But deficits look only at part of a trade: the units of account, or dollars in the United States. What… Continue reading A Deficit of Proper Language
"Let's bring this meeting to order," said the Mayor. "Order, please." He banged the gavel. Quiet emerged in the packed City Council Chambers. Cameras flashed. "All right, to begin, this is a highly informal meeting, at the request of a group which calls themselves the Freedom Zone. This group, and the area where they reside,… Continue reading Freedom Zone Confronts City Council
It's no secret that I object to many of Donald Trump's policy proposals. But I can certainly get behind one: deregulation. It has been estimated that the cost to an average household is about $15,000 per year, in terms of more expensive food, housing, education, health care, and many other goods and services. We can… Continue reading Deregulation Of Innovation
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