http://dev.thefreemanonline.org Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:53:32 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en If Michael Moore would study a little political economy he might turn into a potent champion of individual liberty. As we see in Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore is offended by some truly offensive things: banks engaging in wild speculation without concern for the risk, taxpayer bailouts for banks ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/articles/tgif/frustrating-michael-moore/ What can one say briefly about Human Action? When it was being written and people would ask what it was to be about, the answer given among Mises’s students was: Everything. Indeed. From the setting forth of praxeology as the a priori science of human action, to the description of the market’s ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/departments/perspective/human-action-as-a-work-of-art/ "Thank God we had the federal government last week to bail out the private sector!"  That is what a rather statist friend of mine declared a year ago as the economy tanked, almost gleeful that the financial crisis seemed to be proving how much we all need a massive federal ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/columns/ideas-and-consequences/in-the-grip-of-madness/ Most people learn about the relation between the rise of big business and the growth of government in the form of what amounts to a morality play. In the most widely disseminated version, presented in nearly every American history textbook, the emergence of big business (playing the role of the ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/the-rise-of-big-business-and-the-growth-of-government/ As proposed, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would 1) replace secret-ballot union representation elections with card-check certification of unions as exclusive (monopoly) bargaining agents for workers in their workplaces; 2) impose compulsory-interest arbitration on employers who do not agree to a first union contract within 130 days; and 3) ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/columns/pursuit-of-happiness/efca-and-compromise/ Competition so regularly brings us better stuff—cars, phones, shoes, medicine—that we’ve come to expect it. We complain on the rare occasion the supermarket doesn’t carry a particular ice-cream flavor. We just assume the store will have 30,000 items, that it will be open 24/7, and that the food will be ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/columns/give-me-a-break/competition-would-save-medicine-too/ Not everyone loved President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even in 1936, when he enjoyed his most lopsided electoral victory, almost 17 million voters cast their ballots for Alf Landon. During Roosevelt's long presidency, he attracted vigorous literary critics, such as H. L. Mencken, John T. Flynn, and Garet Garrett. But the ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/departments/book-reviews/new-deal-or-raw-deal-how-fdrs-economic-legacy-has-damaged-america/ Without private property rights, people have incentives to overuse an asset. Conflicting private property rights, on the other hand, create a "tragedy of the anti-commons" in which resources are underused, according to Michael Heller. In The Gridlock Economy, he treats the reader to a compelling array of examples of the ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/departments/book-reviews/the-gridlock-economy-how-too-much-ownership-wrecks-markets-stops-innovation-and-costs-lives/ For years the series of Complete Idiot's Guide books has been a great commercial success, dealing mostly with "practical" topics as varied as dog training and wedding planning. Useful to be sure, but not exactly intellectually stimulating. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Global Economics, by economist Craig Hovey and former ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/departments/book-reviews/the-complete-idiots-guide-to-economics/ In his latest work, One Nation Under Debt, Robert E. Wright, who has written extensively about debt and finance during the decades that marked America's climb to economic preeminence, carefully documents the evolution of U.S. dependability and integrity in the international investment community. This reputation led to the acceptability of ... http://dev.thefreemanonline.org/departments/book-reviews/one-nation-under-debt-hamilton-jefferson-and-the-history-of-what-we-owe/