Recently added articles from Ideas on Liberty:
Pieces of Eight
Nov 01, 2003; ... Pieces of Eight by Edwin Vieira, Jr. Sheridan Books * 2002 * 1,666 pages (two vols.) * $49.95 Take out your wallet and examine the rectangular pieces of greenish paper in it. You'll probably first think "money," then "dollars." Looking closely, you see the words "Federal Reserve Note" ...
The Fallacies of Distributism
Nov 01, 2003; ... In certain disaffected pockets of the political left and right, more and more voices can be heard on behalf of an economic and social system known as distributism. According to the celebrated Catholic writers G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, who popularized the idea in the early twentieth ...
Grutter v. Bollinger: A Constitutional Embarrassment
Nov 01, 2003; ... "All animals are created equal-but some are more equal than others." So goes the crucial line in George Orwell's classic Animal Farm. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Grutter v. Bollinger makes one think of that line, since it gives constitutional approval to the policies used at many ...
Understanding "Austrian" Economics, Part 2
Nov 01, 2003; ... After the passing of its three founders-Carl Menger, Friedrich von Wieser, and Eugen von BohmBawerk-Austrian economics fell for a long time into eclipse. It was not so much refuted as neglected. English-speaking economists began devoting themselves to such matters as mathematical treatment of ...
Business Under German Inflation
Nov 01, 2003; ... Paper money inflation and credit expansion never fall upon a people like an act of God. They are always the outcome of a deliberate policy. The governments and the parties in power take recourse to inflation because they consider it as a blessing or at least a minor evil when compared with the ...
The Great German Inflation
Nov 01, 2003; ... Eighty years ago this month, on November 15, 1923, the Great German Inflation came to an end when the monetary printing presses were finally shut down. The German people had gone through nine years of ever-greater monetary expansion, ever-more soaring prices, the financial destruction of much of ...
Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil
Nov 01, 2003; ... Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil by James Bovard Palgrave Macmillan * 2003 * 440 pages * $26.95 Wars have always seen a growth in state power. Under the appeal of "national security" and "wartime emergency," individual liberties have ...
Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life
Nov 01, 2003; ... Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life by James R. Otteson Cambridge University Press * 2002 * 338 pages * $70.00 hardcover; $26.00 paperback One of the puzzles confronting students of the history of economic thought is the apparent inconsistency of the two masterworks of Adam Smith: The ...
Global Warming: Extreme Weather or Extreme Prejudice?
Nov 01, 2003; ... Extreme weather is making headlines. Record summer temperatures in Europe and a large number of heat-related deaths in India joined news about severe flooding in Bangladesh, China, and Sri Lanka. And an unusual number of tornados in the United States have been reported. For its part the ...
Rent-Seeking: A Primer
Nov 01, 2003; ... Readers of Ideas on Liberty often come across references to the term "rent-seeking." Usually from the context it's plain that it refers to something undesirable, but what exactly is it? The idea of rent is an old one in economics. In mainstream economics it refers to a payment to the ...
It Just Ain't So!
Nov 01, 2003; ... Massive Foreign Aid Is the Solution to Africa's Ills? President Bush traveled to Africa in July. Those sympathetic to the President might say he went to show his charitable concern for the problems of Africa and his sincere care for the downtrodden of the world. But a less rose-tinted ...
Healers Under Siege
Nov 01, 2003; ... The Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug to combat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. That's good news for cancer patients in America and around the world. But you wouldn't know it, given the vicious political campaign being directed against the pharmaceutical industry. America's drug ...
People Before Profits
Nov 01, 2003; ... Whether it's Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan leading the Million-Man March, anti-WTO (World Trade Organization) protesters, or AIDS activists, we're frequently treated to the chant demanding "People Before Profits." Since profit demagoguery is a deceptively appealing tool used by ...
The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson-The Fierce Battles over Money and Power that Transformed the Nation
Nov 01, 2003; ... The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson-The Fierce Battles over Money and Power that Transformed the Nation by Steven R. Weisman Simon * Schuster * 2002 * 419 pages * $27.00 The Great Tax Wars describes the 60-year battle (from Presidents Lincoln to Wilson) that led to the permanent ...
How the Federal Government Got into the Ocean-Shipping Business
Nov 01, 2003; ... Someone who maintains that the relations between government and business in the United States during the past century have been essentially fascistic could find no better example than ocean shipping. Here we observe all the requisite elements of economic fascism: government-authorized and ...
Canute's Courtiers Were Wrong
Nov 01, 2003; ... Shortly after the northeast blackout a New York Times headline blared: "Under Deregulation, Montana Power Price Soars." The story explained that "Montana residents used to pay some of the lowest rates for power in the Northwest, but now, some lawmakers lament, they pay among the region's ...
Oblivious to the Obvious
Nov 01, 2003; ... "Ironically, the birth of a child is registered as a reduction in national income per head, while the birth of a farm animal shows up as an improvement." -PETER BAUER (1991) Each passing year makes me more and more aware of human beings' astounding capacity for overlooking the ...
The Economics of Spam
Nov 01, 2003; ... What's the matter with the Internet? I used to love it, at least the part of it that brought e-mail. One of the highlights of my day used to be Outlook Express's friendly tone announcing that another e-mail had arrived in my inbox. Then I would stop what I was doing to see which friend or ...
Weighing In
Nov 01, 2003; ... Last spring the Arkansas legislature passed a law requiring schools to compute each student's body mass (using the Body Mass Index, BMI) and record it on report cards. The BMI generates a number based on a person's height and weight, and is supposed to indicate something about one's health ....
Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures
Oct 01, 2003; ... Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures by Tyler Cowen Princeton University Press * 2002 * 171 pages * $27.95 Amain gripe against globalization is "American cultural hegemony." When "we" build McDonald's restaurants or sell designer jeans in culturally ...