Almost every psychologically normal human is delighted to here about products everyone can enjoy free of charge. “The schools are free!” “Health care is free!” “Lunch is free!” According to basic welfare economics, however, gratis goods are almost automatically inefficient. Unless the marginal social cost of the product miraculously happens to be zero, setting a price of zero leads to socially wasteful behavior.
Tag: economics
Light Emitting Diode (LED)
Have you noticed that all of the new Xmas lights are LEDs now? Next thing you know, we’ll be lit up all the time, 24/7/365. LEDs will only go away when we can get light more effortlessly and less expensively. It’s like free lunch.
On Borders
The moment a group of people who call themselves “government” enforce their arbitrary border around their supposed jurisdiction is the moment they begin central planning who may live where and who may trade with who. Any libertarian versed in economics can tell you the likely disastrous effects of centrally planning the economic decisions of others.
The Siren of Democratic Fundamentalism
Every economics textbook explain how market outcomes can go wrong. Externalities. Monopoly. Asymmetric information. Irrationality. Democratic outcomes can easily go wrong for all the same reasons. Is it possible that Scandinavians simply underestimate the severity of the disincentives their policies generate?
My Most Excellent Election Day Experience
Last Tuesday, special day that it was, I awoke early and prepared to go out. By 7am, I was where I always go on this special day, eager to do my duty and exercise my sacred right to choose. Entering the warm, brightly lit building, I was greeted by friendly folks who make me feel welcome. Not many others were there yet.
Keep Some Self-Sufficiency In Your Life
I used to dream about becoming “self-sufficient” – growing and making most everything myself. And I put in a good amount of daydreaming time and real work toward that, raising all kinds of poultry, growing a garden, reading books on farm skills. Then I learned economics.
Socialists Without a Plan
The socialists of today aren’t experienced logisticians who fail to see the disanalogies between running an organization and running a whole society. They’re dreamers who want to lead before they learn to follow.
What Do Judges Maximize?
Public choice analysts did not develop a standard way of analyzing the actions of judges. For the most part, judges were simply ignored. Of course, if the judges were elected, they could be analyzed in the same way as any other elected officials, but in regard to appointed judges, especially those appointed for life terms, as the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are, public choice had little to say.
On Economic Growth
There is one overriding theme to everything I’ve learned about economics and economic growth: the importance of secure property rights.
Are We Sure It Can’t It Happen Here?
One runs a risk whenever one cites the 20th century’s great terror states while discussing current ominous developments in the western democracies. Apparent comparisons of the United States or western and central European countries to Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia will inevitably be hooted down with accusations of alarmist conspiracy-mongering and worse, shameful ahistoricity. Nevertheless, that must not keep us from noticing and pointing to contemporary events that bear an eerie resemblance, however slight, to things that went on in those totalitarian terror states.