Editor’s Pick. Written by Neera Badhwar. Aristotle defines a voluntary act as one that has its cause in the agent rather than an external force, and that is done in knowledge of the relevant particulars. This is entirely commonsensical. Everyone would agree that in being blown away by the twister, Dorothy leaves Kansas involuntarily, and…
Tag: markets
Hierarchy or the Market
Editor’s Pick. Written by Kevin Carson. In an article in last June’s Freeman (2007), I applied some ideas from the socialist-calculation debate to the private corporation and examined the extent to which it is an island of calculational chaos in the market economy. I’d like to expand that line of analysis now and apply some common…
The Myth of Market Failure
In the language of economics, a market failure is, as David Friedman writes, “a situation where each individual correctly chooses the action that best accomplishes his objectives, yet the result is worse, in terms of those same objectives, than if everyone had done something else.” As a rule, the pursuit of individual good in the market brings no such negative result. On the rare occasions when rational individual actions lead to regret by those same individuals, the result is labeled “market failure.”
Bitcoin for Beginners
Editor’s Pick. Written by Jeffrey Tucker. Understanding Bitcoin requires that we understand the limits of our ability to imagine the future that the market can create for us. Thirty years ago, for example, if someone had said that electronic text—digits flying through the air and landing in personalized inboxes owned by us all that we…
Markets, Flow, Facts, and Marriage
Send him mail. “Finding the Challenges” is an original bi-weekly column appearing every other Wednesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Verbal Vol. Verbal is a software engineer, college professor, corporate information officer, life long student, farmer, libertarian, literarian, student of computer science and self-ordering phenomena. Archived columns can be found here. FTC-only RSS feed available here. Since…
Editor’s Picks
Since EVC launched, I’ve been sharing blog posts, articles, columns, and videos made by others that promote either voluntaryism, free markets, peaceful parenting, or radical unschooling. I originally shared them as “guest posts”, and since that wasn’t really accurate I changed to just “written by” with a link to read the full thing. This evolved again to…
Spencer Morgan Joins EVC!
Spencer Morgan has joined EVC as a weekly columnist. EVC published the following essays by Spencer in the past: Should Voluntaryists Vote? – December 2011How Can a Free Market Provide What the State is Doing Now? – December 2011How Can Free Markets Guarantee Freedom? – December 2011Where Do Rights Come From? – December 2011How Do…
Entrepreneurship and Social Cooperation
We may laud the market order as an indispensable arena for large-scale social cooperation, but let’s not forget that people cannot cooperate with one another if they don’t know that the potential for mutually beneficial exchanges exists.
Socialism is Incompatible With Liberty
Written by Derek H. for Simple Facts and Plain Arguments. Opponents of free markets claim that the economy needs to be “directed” or “managed,” usually toward some kind of vague social goal or “common good.” In other words, we sacrifice some economic liberty for personal liberty. However, this belief in socialism – and I’m defining…
Market Theory Made Easy
Written by Neodoxy for The Voluntaryist Reader. This is an attempt to provide a simple, but extensive introduction to economics and market theory for anyone who is new to the subject or who is trying to better understand the Austrian approach to economics. I also hope that it will prove useful for anyone who could…