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Book Review, Liberty Classics

Ludwig von Mises’ Decisive Blows Against Interventionism

A Liberty Classic Book Review of Ludwig von Mises. 2011[1940]. Interventionism: An Economic Analysis. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.1 There is no small book that can take the place of Ludwig von Mises’ magisterial book, Human Action.2 However, if there were a contest for shorter publications that could substitute for it, his own book, Interventionism, would .. MORE

Kling's Corner

Do We Need ESSP?

“… social theorists are people too, and so they make the same mistakes as planners, politicians, marketers, and business strategists make, which is to dramatically underestimate the difficulty of what they are trying to do. And just like planners, politicians, and so on, no matter how many times such grand theories fail, there is always .. MORE

Featured Article

In Praise of Debt

We often hear that it’s a bad idea to take on large debts or even to get into debt at all. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” says Polonius to his son Laertes in one of the most famous passages from Hamlet. Polonius’s reason for avoiding borrowing is that it “dulls the edge of .. MORE

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Economics and Culture

You Are What You Eat: Science or Propaganda?

By Walter Donway

Economic and Political Philosophy

Governing and the Rule of Law

By Pierre Lemieux

Obituaries

Daniel Kahneman RIP

By David Henderson

Fiscal Policy

Higher Taxes or Lower Benefits?

By Scott Sumner

Business Economics

Most New Ideas Are Terrible

By Kevin Corcoran

Economics and Culture

This is a Documentary, Right?!?!?

By Walter Donway

International Trade

Customs Unions and Free Trade Zones

By Scott Sumner

Austrian Economics

Ludwig Lachmann Biography

By David Henderson

Economic and Political Philosophy

Simple Economic Ideas About Choice

By Pierre Lemieux

EconTalk

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econtalk-podcast

What Does “Unbiased” Mean in the Digital World? (with Megan McArdle)

Listen as Megan McArdle and EconTalk’s Russ Roberts use Google’s new AI entrant Gemini as the starting point for a discussion about the future of our culture in the shadow of AI bias. They also discuss the tension between rules and discretion in Western society and why the ultimate answer to AI bias can’t be .. MORE

econtalk-podcast

Paul Bloom on Empathy

Psychologist Paul Bloom of Yale University talks about his book Against Empathy with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Bloom argues that empathy–the ability to feel the emotions of others–is a bad guide to charitable giving and public policy. Bloom argues that reason combined with compassion is a better and more effective guide to making the world .. MORE

EconLog

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Economic Methods

My Weekly Reading and Viewing for February 18, 2024

Alexei Navalny’s Death Is a Timely Reminder of How Much Russia Sucks By Eric Boehm, Reason, February 16, 2024 Excerpt: If there is the thinnest bit of a silver lining to be found in the untimely demise of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who reportedly died this week in prison, perhaps it is this: .. MORE

International Trade

Questions for Interventionists

In an earlier post, I pointed out that we do not exist in a state of nature.  As many economists have been pointing out since at least Ronald Coase’s famous 1960 paper The Problem of Social Costs, we exist in a complex world of pre-existing social, economic, legal, and legislative arrangements.  These arrangements influence our .. MORE

LIBERTY CLASSICS SERIES

Explore the lasting legacies and
continued relevance of our classic titles.

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Book Titles

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The Theory of Interest

By Irving Fisher

THE tremendous expansion of credit during and since the World War to finance military operations as well as post-war reparations, reconstruction, and the rebuilding of industry and trade has brought the problems of capitalism and the nature and origin of interest home afresh to the minds of business men as well as to economists. This .. MORE

The Man Versus The State, with Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom

By Herbert Spencer

The Man Versus The State by Herbert Spencer was originally published in 1884 by Williams and Norgate, London and Edinburgh. The book consisted of four articles which had been published in Contemporary Review for February, April, May, June, and July of 1884. For collection in book form, Spencer added a Preface and a Postscript. In .. MORE

Book Reviews and Suggested Readings

Speculations on Origins and Endings: An Essay on The Essential UCLA School of Economics

By Michael L. Davis

An Essay and Book Review of The Essential UCLA School of Economics, by David R. Henderson and Steven Globerman.1 When you think about dinosaurs—which you should; dinosaurs are awesome—you always end up with the same two questions: where did they come from and where did they go? Yes, all life evolves through a process that .. MORE

Maybe It’s Not Time for Socialism

By Donald J. Boudreaux

A Book Review of Time For Socialism, by Thomas Piketty.1 Time For Socialism author Thomas Piketty boasts a doctorate in economics, publishes papers regularly in top economics journals, teaches economics at the Paris School of Economics, and was once on the economics faculty at M.I.T. Yet not only are the 333 pages of his 2021 .. MORE

Conversations

VIDEO

A Conversation with Harold Demsetz

A professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago in the 1960s and a primary figure in Chicago School Economics and in the field of Law and Economics, Harold Demsetz has contributed original research on the theory of the firm, regulation in markets, industrial organization, antitrust policy, transaction costs, externalities, and .. MORE

VIDEO

A Conversation with Armen A. Alchian

Recognized as one of the most influential voices in the areas of market structure, the theory of the firm, law and economics, resource unemployment, and monetary theory and policy, in this 2001 interview, Armen Alchian (1914-2013) outlines the “UCLA tradition” of economics which he founded and explores the many unanticipated consequences of self-seeking individual behavior. .. MORE

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College Economics Topics

Supplementary materials for popular college textbooks used in courses in the Principles of Economics, Microeconomics, Price Theory, and Macroeconomics are suggested by topic.

Economist Biographies

From the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

Economic History, Labor

U.S. Slavery and Economic Thought

Introduction Chattel slavery involves the ownership by one person of another. This entry focusses on the operation of that labor system in the United States. Although chattel slavery dates back to the dawn of civilization, in the area that became the United States it emerged after the importation of Africans to the Virginia colony in .. MORE

Economic History, Government Policy, Labor, The Marketplace

Labor Unions

Although labor unions have been celebrated in folk songs and stories as fearless champions of the downtrodden working man, this is not how economists see them. Economists who study unions—including some who are avowedly prounion—analyze them as cartels that raise wages above competitive levels by restricting the supply of labor to various firms and industries. .. MORE

Economics of Legal Issues, Government Policy

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is common in America today. Notwithstanding two decades of largely uninterrupted economic growth, the annual bankruptcy filing rate has quintupled, topping 1.5 million individuals annually. Recent years also have seen several of the largest and most expensive corporate bankruptcies in history. This confluence of skyrocketing personal bankruptcies in a period of prosperity, an increasingly .. MORE

Quotes

Despite the coercion of government, markets are irrepressible because they express the elemental urge of ordinary people to come together as buyers and sellers. “Corrigible Capitalism, Incorrigible Socialism”

-Arthur Seldon

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.

-Frederic Bastiat Full Quote >>

Knowledge is more a matter of learning than of the exercise of absolute judgment. Learning requires time, and in time the situation dealt with, as well as the learner, undergoes change.Rick, Uncertainty, and Profit

-Frank H. Knight Full Quote >>