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.”
Tag: prison
The Rules Don’t Apply To The State
Editor’s Pick. Written by Michael Suede. One of the fascinating things about the state is its ability to get away with crimes that normal citizens would be imprisoned or executed for. In a world awash in rules and regulations, I find it fascinating that virtually none of the rules apply to the people who are…
I Didn’t Sign Up For This!
Send him mail. “One Improved Unit” is an original bi-weekly column appearing every other Monday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by the founder and editor Skyler J. Collins. Archived columns can be found here. OIU-only RSS feed available here. My parenting has evolved considerably over the last two years. Where I’m at now is not where I thought…
The Real World
Writes Kicking it Unschool: There is the opinion that school prepares children for the “real world”. I disagree. First of all, children are often forced to go to school against their will. Then they are forced to associate with the children in their classes, lunch hour, and recess. Their lives are put on a schedule…
Authorizing the Criminal State
Writes Free Your Kids: The War on Drugs has been a colossal failure, yet still it persists. Many people defend it on the grounds that we (collectively) must do something to keep people from harming themselves. Whether one feels illegal drugs are harmful or not (I think they’re generally not harmful), we must ask ourselves…
Do You Really ‘Owe’ Those Taxes?
Written by Anonymous, as sent to Voluntaryist.com. “The question is not whether or not theft is wrong but what is considered to be theft; in the same way, murder is universally forbidden but there are great differences between peoples as to what killing is considered to be murder.” – Garrett Barden and Tim Murphy, Law…
What Voluntaryists Believe And Why
Written by Carl Watner, as published in The Voluntaryist, August 1992. [Editor’s Note: The following was written by Carl Watner in fulfillment of a request by a private retail company to print their principles on their shopping bags. SJC] We believe that the following principles of ownership are self-evident: 1. Every person, by virtue of…
The Political Enemy Is Politics Itself
Written by John W. Deming, as published in The Voluntaryist, August 1992. The cause of the political disease is politics itself. Political means never achieve the ends sought. The goals of a sensible political state would be to reduce its presence in the lives of its citizenry to the greatest extent possible. And that’s the…
Notes on War and Freedom
Written by Ramsey Clark, as published in The Voluntaryist, August 1992. War is more destructive of freedom than any other human activity. Any violation of civil liberties is easily justified in times of war and the threat of war, however unnecessary for security, harmful to its victims, irrational, unfair, or even detrimental to the war…