Free Market

The Invisible Hand of the State

by Will Tippens July 1, 2017

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. — Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations As Adam Smith observed in 1776, when people seek to benefit themselves through voluntary trade, they unwittingly benefit society at large. This phenomenon is often ...

Misguided Attacks on the Rich

by George Leef June 1, 2017

Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy by Robert H. Frank (Princeton University Press, 2016; 208 pages) In 2002, I reviewed an atrocious book for this publication — The Myth of Ownership, by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel. It argued that we don’t really deserve to own anything because society makes everything possible. Therefore, ...

Political Planning versus Personal Planning by Everyone

by Richard M. Ebeling May 8, 2017

In politics everyone has a plan. A plan to "fix" the health care problem. A plan to "protect" the environment. A plan to "guarantee" everyone a "living wage." A plan to "control" immigration. A plan to have "sustainable" economic growth. A plan to . . . The list goes on almost endlessly. What's wrong with having a plan? We all ...

What Is a Government Worker Worth Without a Free Market?

by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2017

Where are you more likely to earn a better salaried income, in the private sector or working for the government? Well, it turns out that those employed by the federal government and having only high school diplomas or college bachelors’ degrees, are likely to be financially far better off. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released in April 2017 a new ...

The Moral Foundations of the Free Market Society

by Richard M. Ebeling April 17, 2017

Higher education in the United States is engulfed in an ideological campaign against the American political and economic traditions of individual liberty, free competitive markets, and constitutionally limited government. In its place is the “progressive” agenda of collectivist identity politics, the regulatory and redistributive interventionist economy, and political plunder and power. Both “scientific” and casual surveys of political orientation and ...

Time to Smack Down the Small Business Administration

by Laurence M. Vance January 5, 2017

In 2012, Barack Obama elevated the administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to a Cabinet-level position, where the office had been under Bill Clinton. The current administrator, Maria Contreras-Sweet, is unknown to the overwhelming majority of Americans, as are the thirty-three administrators who preceded her. This ignorance is about to change, for, according to a statement ...

The Nebulous Crime of Ticket Scalping

by Laurence M. Vance September 13, 2016

Although the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are over, for some people associated with the games, things are just beginning. Athletes who won medals are now household names in their respective countries. Many were honored with parades. Some will receive lucrative endorsement deals. Others will appear in television commercials. And although U.S. athletes will have to pay

The Right to Hire and Fire

by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2016

Do businesses have the right to hire whomever they want for a particular job? Most Americans would agree that they certainly do. But when you ask the same people whether businesses have the right to not hire whomever they don’t want for a particular job, most of them will say that it depends on the reason someone is not ...

The Making of a Great Entrepreneur

by Burton W. Folsom Jr. June 1, 2016

Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography, by Samuel Bostaph (Lexington Books, 2015), 124 pages. Andrew Carnegie, that remarkable steelmaker, was a key player in the rise of the United States to becoming a world power in the late 1800s. More than that, Carnegie was one of the most spectacular entrepreneurs in all of U.S. history — ranked number four ...

The Free Market at Work

by Laurence M. Vance May 5, 2016

Even with all the government licensing, regulation, and oversight that American businesses are burdened with, the United States still has a relatively free market compared with most other countries. This is especially true on the consumer side. One of the great weapons that consumers have is the boycott. Let’s look at some high-profile boycotts and then see what it is ...

Joseph Schumpeter: the “Father” of Capitalist “Creative Destruction”

by Richard M. Ebeling February 8, 2016

Today is Austrian-born economist, Joseph A. Schumpeter’s, birthday. Born on February 8, 1883, he died on January 8, 1950. Schumpeter is famous as a leading 20th century formulator of the notion of the entrepreneur as dynamic innovator of change, and also as a master of the history of economic ideas. Trained as an economist at the University of Vienna in ...

Free the Gas Pumps!

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2015

Aside from both being coastal states, New Jersey and Oregon have little in common except for one infamous thing. Drivers vacationing or passing through either state for the first time who have to stop to gas up their cars are in for a rude awakening if they try to pump their own gas. They will quickly find out from ...