We Interrupt This Tragedy…

Killing the messenger will never grow old.  It is because there are far too many who are desperately seeking ways to shut out the tsunami of data.  I don’t know how many times I have heard the phrase, “Cartoon News Network” used because someone did not like the import of a story.  To be sure, CNN has done everything in its power to destroy its own credibility, but when a story contains a verifiable fact, CNN’s lack of credibility is incapable of changing that fact to “fake news.”

The Economics of Law, Order, and Action

My book The Economics of Law, Order, and Action: The Logic of Public Goods is now available for purchase. Its primary purpose is to provide a comprehensive challenge to the standard position of the economic and political mainstream, according to which efficient production of so-called public goods, including law and defense, requires the use of territorial monopolies of coercive force.

Don’t Blame the Guns, Blame the Schools

Today’s public schools already share many characteristics with prisons, yet the ‘answer’ some folks are proposing to the (statistically negligible) threat of school shootings is to make schools even more like prisons. Schools are an artificial environment that (much like a prison) forces kids to join gangs or cliques in order to avoid rejection and outsider status. Those who don’t fit in are subject to ridicule, abuse, and even brutality in some cases.