I think I am a better choir director than I am a pest control businessman. However, I make much more as a businessman because the market forces at work value a good businessman more than a great music director. Even if I am better at one task, I am more valuable to people’s subjective preferences at another.
Tag: business
Reflections from my Panama Cruise, II
Falmouth had the most lavish port shopping area; I’d compare it to Reston, Virginia. The area beyond, though thinly inhabited, was fairly poor, but with quite a few middle-class homes mixed in. Our tour guide said that many Jamaicans spend years building their own homes so they can live rent-free (but not property-tax-free) for life.
Reflections from my Panama Cruise, I
As I’ve mentioned before, cruises are in one sense a great test case for open borders. Workers from all over the world come together to run one some of the world’s most sophisticated technology and please some of the world’s most demanding customers.
Quarter-Life Crises Are Good For You
We need a good hard slap in this day and age to remind ourselves that life is short. We need a good reminder that life is passing us by and life will pass us by – comfortably – if we don’t do anything about it.
On Voluntaryists IV
One notable difference between voluntaryists and coercivists are the former’s insistence on tackling issues from their root, largely dug deep in a coercive foundation. Coercivists prefer to hack away at the branches with nary a concern for whose lives and liberties they may be violating.
Why Steve Jobs, not Bill Gates, Was the True Education Visionary
When it comes to education reform, there are generally two camps: those who want to improve the existing mass compulsory schooling system through tweaking and tuning and those who want to build something entirely new and different. Not surprisingly, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was in the “think different” camp, advocating for school choice and vouchers, while Microsoft’s Bill Gates backed the Common Core State Standards and other incremental reforms within the conventional mass schooling model.
With Wilson in the Wilderness
I’ve mentioned the business “Wilson” had which was shut down by government meddling. Well, due to our similar interests in that area he and I used to hike in the wilderness area outside of town. He wore a camo army jacket with cargo pants and army boots and I wore my buckskin clothes and mocassins– in other words, I didn’t dress any differently than normal for the hike, although I did carry extra gear.
Tucker Carlson Needs Love from His Leaders
Timothy Sandefur has exposed Carlson’s failure to grasp that individual freedom and its spontaneously emergent arena for peaceful voluntary exchange — the marketplace — make possible what Carlson insists he values most: “Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence,” which Carlson correctly identifies as “ingredients in being happy.”
Your Past Should Look Worse in Hindsight
I’ve been spending too much time lately worried about my narrative of the past. When things have been hard, it can be especially tempting to want to hold on to a rosy vision of the past. You want to be able to pat yourself on the back for some things, after all. It can be…
Gambling: Let People (Not the Government and not “the” People) Decide
Why should it be up to the US Department of Justice, or this or that group of politicians or lobbyists, or some percentage of your state’s voters, whether or not you can place a bet on the outcome of a sporting event, a roll of the dice, a spin of the wheel, or what cards get dealt at a poker table?