The Entrepreneur

John Wanamaker was the Gilded Age genius who pioneered the department store, the posted single price for goods, the money-back guarantee, and the p

This world-renowned merchant seeks no fame for his business achievements.

Mencken wrote that the sine qua non of all good criticism should be its ability to stand alone as a piece of art regardless of the qualities inherent in the object of the criticism. Cantor, Cox, and the other critics whose essays appear in Literature and the Economics of Liberty attain this goal.

Anyone who has worked in middle management has likely, at one time or another, had their big boss pass out some dopey management books that especially touched the hamster-brained sociopath (as Scott Adams would say) who was in charge of operations.

Legal or not, destruction is animal-like behavior. It's one thing when it is done by wild pigs. But when identical forms of destruction are sponsored by the state, we are talking about a form of brutality that is purely man-made.

The economy is now a networked economy. Some people even say that in this networked world centralized managerial hierarchies are obsolete; in the future, they will be replaced by decentralized, disaggregated, peer-to-peer communities.

Julian Assange cracked the government's veil of benignity and brought into question the state's tactics. So the state must destroy him.

If Scott can excoriate most of his fellow historians for confounding "civilization" with "state-making," he himself can be excoriated for confounding statelessness with lack of government.

If the entrepreneur aims at the highest possible profit, he performs a service to society in managing an enterprise. Whoever hinders him from doing this acts against the interests of society and imperils the satisfaction of consumer needs.

What are the results of the patent system itself? The results are distorted research, protectionism, wealth transfers, and enrichment of the patent bar. Large companies, such as IBM, amass giant patent portfolios.