It is not only that Free Market Capitalism has raised our level of comfort and given us enormous product variety, but also that many people throughout the world have come to depend on these technological innovations for their very existence. The wealthier society sees technology as luxurious but unnecessary and superfluous. The poorer society sees technology as an oasis in a vast desert.
Tag: markets
Anarchism as Constitutionalism
Trying to refute anarchism by pointing to undesirable instances of anarchy is about as bad an argument as trying to refute Bidinotto’s advocacy of government by pointing to the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. Whether a state is horrendous or decent depends in large part on its constitutional structure; whether an anarchic society is horrendous or decent likewise depends on its constitutional structure.
The Utter Irrelevance of the “Balance of Trade”
No concept in international economics – indeed, perhaps no concept in all of economics – is as prodigious a source of confusion and plunderous policy as is that of the so-called “trade deficit.”
Coffee and Markets
Why is it that in Ireland, the UK, and Western Europe you can buy coffee in a jar, whereas here in the USA you can only find ersatz coffee in a jar? For once, I am not going to blame the state (although I suspect it is behind this somewhere). The market is here, it’s just not evenly distributed, to paraphrase William Gibson, the cyberpunk writer.
If Men Were Angels
Although I admit that the outcome in a stateless society will be bad, because not only are people not angels, but many of them are irredeemably vicious in the extreme, I conjecture that the outcome in a society under a state will be worse, indeed much worse, because, first, the most vicious people in society will tend to gain control of the state and, second, by virtue of this control over the state’s powerful engines of death and destruction, they will wreak vastly more harm than they ever could have caused outside the state.
The Rot of Systemic Biases
Bryan Caplan, author of “The Myth of the Rational Voter,” compared average voter beliefs to the beliefs of economic experts. He found four systemic voter biases – areas where voters as a whole tend to systematically diverge from expert knowledge.
Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter to the World Economy
In his book, “Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy,” Neuwirth points out that small, illegal, off-the-books businesses collectively account for trillions of dollars in commerce and employ fully half the world’s workers. Further, he says, these enterprises are critical sources of entrepreneurialism, innovation, and self-reliance. And the globe’s gray and black markets have grown during the international recession, adding jobs, increasing sales, and improving the lives of hundreds of millions. It’s time, Neuwirth says, for the developed world to wake up to what those who are working in the shadows of globalization have to offer.
Imports Create Jobs and Trade Deficits Don’t Matter
It is no good objection to reply that America’s current-account (or “trade”) deficit means that foreigners don’t buy from us as much as we buy from foreigners. First, the investments in America made by foreigners (and that increase the U.S. trade deficit) also typically involve demand for U.S. inputs, including workers. When, for example, Ikea builds a store in Dale City, Virginia, American workers and other input suppliers are employed in that project.
The Violence And Justice Monopoly
Almost all of us hold two beliefs which contradict a third near-universal belief. The first is that a state, however else defined, is a geographic monopoly of security and justice. One cannot appeal a ruling beyond the state, and whatever private providers of security and justice may exist, they do so in pronounced subservience to and supervision by the state. The second is that monopolies invariably cause high prices and low quality.
How to Create an Economic Disaster
The current course Trump desires to take will lead to more border violence and more illegal immigration. What keeps Mexicans in Mexico is a vibrant and successful Mexican economy. When you obliterate their market with tariffs, they will be clamoring over the border at any expense.