Philosophy and Methodology

Bob Murphy asks a series of tough (but fair, he hopes) questions for conservatives, ranging from tariffs to impeachment to drug prohibition.

There are two clear and present dangers to liberty. One is known as the Left, and the other is the Right. They seek to use government to mold society into a form they seek, rather than the form that liberty achieves if society is left on its own.

The previously unexplored evidence presented here confirms that Keynes advocated a consistent form of non-Marxist socialism from no later than 1907 until his death in 1946.

According to the usual justification for government regulation of externalities,almost everything we do is ripe for regulation. Even worse, regulators never admit their prohibitions prevent an incalculable number of positive externalities.

Rothbard’s work on welfare economics probably ranks among his least-known achievements, but it is truly a tour de force and another tribute to his great originality and talent as an economist.

If governments do anything more than protect property rights, then they're too big.

By advocating an increased monetary role for the state, Keynes has made the credit cycle considerably worse and more destabilising.

The General Theory is not a book explaining economics to his followers at all, but a propaganda tool to lead them to his vision of a non-Marxist socialist nirvana.

Even Marx was forced to admit that workers were not being paid at subsistence levels, and that capitalism led to a rising standard of living for workers. So in order to save his theory, he redefined the concept of subsistence.

Dressing up the history of the world, and its economic development, in terms of transaction costs is mostly not very helpful.