Guest post by Chris Bassil. In recent news, Apple, Inc. has won a decisive lawsuit against fellow electronics and software developer Samsung. The lawsuit, which found Samsung guilty of infringing on a number of Apple’s patents, awarded over $1 billion to Apple, and sent a formidably clear message to all others in the field. It…
Category: Free Markets
Economics and the Citizen
Guest post by Ludwig von Mises. Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything. It is the pith of civilization and of man’s human existence. To mention this fact is not…
The Basics of Copyright
Guest post by Wendy McElroy. I argue for copyright based on contract rather than upon natural rights because no natural ownership exists in freely expressed ideas. Ownership exists only in ideas that are protected by prior agreement or that remain unexpressed. What is the difference between a contractual and a natural right?Read the full thing…
An Agorist Manifesto in 95 Theses
Guest post by Human Advancement. Suitable for nailing to an appropriate door near you… agora (1) – n. A place of congregation, an ancient Greek marketplace.agora (2) – n. A market free of forceable regulation, taxation, and government(The) Agora – The aggregate of all such markets of any size.95 Theses 1. Free, unregulated, untaxed, and…
Inconceivable Complexity
Guest post by Donald J. Boudreaux. A market economy is indescribably vast and complex—its success depends on so many intricate, changing details all somehow being made to work smoothly together that the “facts” that are essential to its thriving cannot be catalogued with anywhere near the completeness that can be achieved by a 21st-century scientist…
Jesus Christ, Pirate
Guest post by Kevin Carson. After reportedly feeding a crowd of five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth was recently served with formal legal notice from industry trade associations, demanding that he cease and desist from what they charge is an illegal food-sharing operation under the terms of the Miracle…
The Magic Washing Machine
Guest post by Hans Rosling.
Droughts, Famines, and Markets
Guest post by Steven Horwitz. As I write, many high school students all over the United States, my daughter included, are reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, with its portrayal of the 1930s Dust Bowl, in preparation for literature courses in the fall. Steinbeck’s fictional account vividly captures the suffering endured by many Americans…
Is the Free Market a Utopia?
Guest post by Nielsio. Jon Stewart asks: “If we didn’t have government, we’d all be in hovercrafts, and nobody would have cancer, and broccoli would be ice-cream?” Libertarians are not against government, they are for economic cooperation. We would like to expand the division of labor in as many areas as possible, and as such…
Three Voluntary Economies
Guest post by Philip E. Jacobson. A free nation is not necessarily a Capitalist nation. As we seek to describe the institutions of a free nation we must consider all the alternatives. In the United States, libertarians tend to associate the idea of an economy based on voluntary relations with cash-based, for-profit enterprises. Other voluntary…