Who knows what housing, stores, railways or other benefits to society Scrooge had made possible through his wise judgment? How many thousands of jobs had he created? Dickens is unjustly silent on this. Whatever Scrooge had financed, we know it was something the public wanted or needed enough to pay for voluntarily. Thanks to Scrooge, however crusty his demeanor, the common people of London were far richer than they otherwise would have been without his services.
Category: Free Markets
The Season of Giving and the Economic System that Fosters Great Generosity
Christmas will soon be here, and preparations for this holiday are proceeding apace. People are buying gifts for family members and friends and making preparations for great feasts at which family, friends, and other loved ones will gather to share the joy and love of the occasion.
The Preposterous Belief That “Wage Slavery” Has Anything to Do with Slavery
This “wage slavery” argument is very convincing. It is potent because all human beings already accept that every one of us is, indeed, compelled to work (in one sense of the word) until one has enough wealth. The “thing” that compels people to work, is reality. No one, not even the richest man, can escape the fact that, if one just consumes and consumes resources without doing anything productive, one will eventually starve and die. This circumstance of reality applies to everyone.
Progressives Must Confront Their Racist Roots
In the early 20th century, the progressive definition of the common good was thoroughly infused with scientific racism.
Why Markets Produce “a Race to the Top”
Many Americans trust the market to some extent but worry that capitalism will create a race to the bottom without government intervention. In their mind, companies will cut corners and outsource labor in the pursuit of profit, creating shoddier and shoddier products. The true free market, however, creates exactly the opposite: a race to the top. And the SEO industry, one of the few completely non-regulated industries in the US, proves it. As a professional SEO, I’ve seen first-hand how it continues to evolve in prosocial ways without government intervention.
Are We Really Worse Off than our Parents?
Ask yourself this: even if you make less than your parents, would you go back in time to the world they lived in when they were your current age even with their higher real money income? My guess is no, and that’s the most powerful evidence that whatever your income, you perceive yourself as better off today than they were then.
Entrepreneurship in Cuba
Will entrepreneurship flourish in Cuba, and will it bring the same increases in the quality of life as elsewhere in the world? I am cautiously optimistic.
How Work Became Drudgery Once Again
Young people, college graduates especially, are not feeling hopeful about their careers. Mired in student loan debt, facing a labor market that has been stagnant for as long as they can remember, and deciding between a job where they’ll be miserable and moving back in with their parents, millennials have grown skeptical toward market capitalism. Yet, if they looked at the history of the matter, they would be amazed how far we’ve strayed from a free market in labor in the past century. Their plight is not due to economic freedom, but to a century of centralized efforts to regiment and regulate the labor market and the very mind and soul of the worker.
The Trouble With Socialist Anarchism
Written by Per Bylund. The new movie “V for Vendetta” has provoked public discussion of the meaning of anarchism. Murray Rothbard was an advocate of the stateless society, but he was never accepted by the anarchist movement and is still considered more a “capitalist lackey” than anarchist thinker. Indeed, anarcho-capitalism has always been considered an…
Trump’s Tactic Is Certain to Create Regime Uncertainty
The president’s actions might capture media attention and create the impression that he is going to bat to protect threatened jobs, but the visible effects of such random blundering about will be tiny in comparison with the far-reaching effects on corporate managers and owners across the board, because such selective intervention in the details of companies’ operations epitomizes the kind of action by which governments create what I have called regime uncertainty—a pervasive fear that existing private property rights in one’s property and the income the property yields will be attenuated or destroyed by unpredictable changes in government taxation, regulation, or other action.