Why would anyone underestimate the benefits of interacting with foreigners? It might be because they are, well, foreign. Combine this bias with an ignorance of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” (spontaneous order) and a suspicion that exchange is zero-sum rather than positive-sum, and you have the making of an economic nationalist.
Tag: cooperation
Economics Helps You Deal with Difficult People
You wake up to the realization that you have an important meeting in 30 minutes. You leap out of bed, throw some clothes on, grab your keys, and rush out the door. You’re halfway to your car when you see it.
It’s not a moment of zen, but of economics.
Somebody has slashed your tires.
Will Virtual Worlds Destroy Humanity?
People who become consumed with virtual worlds do so because they find there the hormonal rewards that are lacking elsewhere. I’ve heard it said by such a person that he’s a hero and champion in his video game, but outside his life is complete shit. How does that happen?
Immigration and Social Engineering
Social engineers of all parties and persuasions talk as though an economy is some kind of mechanism to be centrally fine-tuned and overhauled occasionally according to a plan. Even those who style themselves free enterprisers display the central-planning mentality when it comes to immigration.
What the Left Should Like about Public Choice
Although the public choice school of political economy has been demonized in a new work of putatively progressive fiction masquerading as intellectual history, good-faith leftists (if they don’t already regard themselves as libertarians) may be surprised by how their cause could benefit from the insights of James Buchanan, et al.
On Property and Aggression
Rights are not metaphysical entities. No pathologist finds them during an autopsy. In a sense, they are conventions, but by that, I do not mean they are arbitrary. They are conventions much in the same way that David Hume saw the virtue of justice, which he equated with respect for property.
Coercion and Violence to Advance Agendas
Study history and you will find a common occurrence present throughout all times and locations—individuals, groups, and entities attempting to impose their preferences on others through coercion and violence.
We Are the Economy They Want to Regulate
The question is not whether the market should be regulated, but who should regulate it. And the only two choices are: 1) market participants through the exercise of their free and peaceful choices or 2) politicians and bureaucrats relying on the threat of violence to impose their will.
The Problem With Obedience: Why You Really Don’t Want An Obedient Child
Wouldn’t it be nice if your children just did what you asked all the time? Do you ever have this thought? Of course you do! You have children. I have had the same thoughts (trust me), but when you really think about the long term consequences of obedience and how that looks in a relationship, you start to really question our culture’s parenting methods.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Aggregates
“In economic theory, a high level of aggregation conceals a multitude of sins. The more removed a concept is from genuine, individual, economic choice, the more misleading it is likely to be.”