I’ve come to the conclusion that the world would be better off had there never been the sub-discipline within economics of “international economics” (or, alternatively, of “international trade” and “international finance”). The economics profession likely also would be better off without such a sub-discipline.
Category: Free Markets
At the Heart of Protectionism is a Fear of Prosperity
The primal man-in-the-street fear of free trade – and fear of other labor-saving innovations – is a fear rooted in a completely mistaken understanding of reality. It is a fear that we humans (or at least we in our country) are on the verge of conquering scarcity and of transforming the world (or at least our country) into one of superabundance. This fear is truly irrational.
Countries Are Not Companies
One of the most persistent false beliefs held by American voters is that someone with “business experience” would do a better job “running the economy” than politicians have. Let’s put aside the idea that an economy is something that needs to be, or can be, “run” and explore whether a CEO of a major company as president really would be better for the economy.
The Lament of the Merely Decent Economist
The first eye-opening moment for an attentive student in a good introduction-to-economics class occurs when that young man or woman learns to see – or learns to look for – that which remains invisible to most people. Such a student starts to search for the unseen jobs lost as a result of the ‘seen’ jobs created or protected by tariffs. He or she begins to understand that government-imposed prohibitions on the free movement of prices and wages have unseen consequences – invariably bad, and typically borne disproportionately by the very persons the prohibitions are ostensibly meant to help. The man-in-the-street has lots of wrong-headed ideas about economics.
Freer Trade Is Deregulation
For those who like competitive markets, the prospect of a Trump presidency has not held a great deal of promise. His love of discretionary power, his weak understanding of economics, and his long history of cronyism all suggest that the next four years will not be a good time for those of us who think that market capitalism is the best economic system for raising the overall standard of living, and especially for the least well off among us.
Human Evil and the Free Market
It is very common to assert that the advocates of the purely free market make one fundamental and shaky assumption: that all human beings are angels. In a society of angels, it is commonly agreed, such a program could “work,” but not in our fallible world. The chief difficulty with this criticism is that no libertarian—except possibly those under Tolstoyan influence—has ever made such an assumption.
Key To Conflict Resolution: Property Rights
The association of humans with their subjective choices is only natural, and identifying how these choices fit in as a part of social cooperation leads to reciprocity and a mutual recognition of property rights and human rights. Both human rights and property rights are understood in that context of reciprocity.
Why Does the Minimum Wage Debate Never End?
Has any science ever devoted so much time, effort, and cleverness to elaborate attempts to determine whether or not a central and indisputably correct tenet of that science – a tenet used without question to predict outcomes in general – fails to work as an accurate predictor for one very specific, small slice of reality as has been devoted by economics over the past two decades to determine whether or not the law of demand works to accurately predict the effects of minimum wages on the quantity demanded of low-skilled labor?
Ten Fundamental Laws of Economics
In the midst of so many economic fallacies being repeatedly seemingly without end, it may be helpful to return to some of the most basic laws of economics. Here are ten of them that bear repeating again and again.
Minimum Wage? Won’t Someone Think of the Children!?
I was quite proud of my 12 year-old recently. She bought her own iPad with money she had saved from babysitting her younger sisters (a joint-effort with her 13 year-old sister) on the nights that I have class. It reminded me of my first job working at the gun range where my dad shot skeet & trap. I earned about $55/week, paid the same way; in cash. I would do simple stuff, like load targets, ‘pull’ for shooters, maintain the grounds, etc. At its core, the minimum wage is a coercive extraction of resources from one party to be given to another.