My wife and I just got back from looking around at yard sales and thrift stores. One thing that always strikes me when we do things like this is the mismatch between the problems of the world’s wealthy and the problems of the world’s poor. The poor are dying for lack of material comfort–food, clothing, and shelter. Meanwhile, those of us in the
If you answered “the private investors who refused to risk their own money on Solyndra,” pat yourself on the back. Matt Welch offers more . One thing that is conspicuously absent from a lot of discussions of policies aimed at creating “green jobs” or providing “affordable housing” is a clear recognition of the information-revealing properties of
I discussed sweatshops and immigration in my Forbes column a few weeks ago . Since then, I’ve seen a couple of great posts on sweatshops and exploitation from Mark Pennington and Matt Zwolinski . Pennington makes the curious point that the case for sweatshops is usually met with derision, scorn, and moral outrage even though it is based on
It’s appropriate that this was released today in light of this morning’s discussion of sweatshops . Here’s the last in a series of LearnLiberty.org videos from Benjamin Powell: Powell is working on a book about sweatshops. Here are Google results for some of his papers and other talks . Here are my videos on trade . Powell makes the important
In response to Friday’s Forbes article , a friend asked how we would all be better off if the washerwoman who has higher earnings as a result of the minimum wage takes a pay cut. The employment effect of a minimum wage is a classic example of the law of unintended consequences and Frederic Bastiat’s insights about the seen and the unseen . It also
John Tomasi is guest-blogging for Bleeding-Heart Libertarians on a research agenda for bleeding-heart libertarians. His latest entry continues his “frozen waters” metaphor and describes “ Ships of the BHL Line .” He points out that a lot of bleeding-heart libertarians and 20th century liberals share many of the same values–a commitment to the
Benjamin Powell knocks out three of the myths about immigration: they’re a drag on the economy (false!), they take our jobs (false!), and they lower our wages (false!): Naturally, I suspect that Darryl Weathers from the Construction Workers’ Union is not convinced: Goobacks Tags: SOUTH PARK more As a bonus, here’s an EconTalk episode in which
Rhodes hosted a speaker from the anti-sweatshop movement on Wednesday night ; I wasn’t able to attend because I was giving an Econ 100 exam, but after conversations with a few students, it sounds like the talk was pretty predictable: sweatshop conditions are terrible, the wages are low, isn’t it unconscionable that Nike pays its executives so much
People respond to incentives. When governments change incentives, people respond in ways that produce unintended results. The law of unintended consequences has come to the fore recently in a discussion over the legal status of unpaid internships. If you subscribe to Arts & Letters Daily , you probably saw a link to this piece , which reviews a
Alex Tabarrok on “ The Lost Eden of Childhood. Not Lost. Not Eden. ” Great comments, too. The more I learn about economic history, the more skeptical I am of nostalgic reminisces for “a simpler time” and complaints about “kids these years.” A couple of thoughts: 1. The “simpler time” for which you yearn was not so simple and probably not as good
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.
